Chris Smith: “Mr. Speaker, later on today when this bill comes up for consideration, I, along with the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr.…”

“Mr. Speaker, later on today when this bill comes up for consideration, I, along with the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), will be offering an amendment to strike language that is in the underlying bill, the Crowley amendment, which was adopted very narrowly in committee. The Crowley amendment would fundamentally change the Kemp-Kasten amendment that has been in effect for 18 years. The Kemp-Kasten language is anticoercion language that says very simply that our country will not contribute money to any organization that supports or participates in the management of a coercive population control program. Under the Kemp-Kasten language last year, Secretary of State Colin Powell, after his due diligence, made a finding that took the money from the UNFPA, the U.N. population fund, and sought to reprogram each and every dollar of that to an organization or to programs that provided family planning or maternal health care programming. Secretary of State Colin Powell said: "The PRC has in place a regime of severe penalties on women who have unapproved births." Let me just remind my colleagues, in China you have got to get permission by the government in order to have a child. They have unapproved births and approved births. If you are unapproved, if you are out of plan, as they say, if you have an illegal child, a heavy fine is imposed upon the mother until she gets an abortion.”