[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 23 (Monday, February 6, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H1267]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


           APPOINT A SURGEON GENERAL WHO SUPPORTS ABSTINENCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Klug). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise to first commend my 
colleague, the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn], on his, I believe, 
very timely and very cogent comments.
  I ran for the U.S. Congress not only because I though our Nation 
needed things like the line-item veto, passed tonight, as well as the 
balanced budget amendment, some real welfare reform, but I also ran 
because I was concerned about the moral and spiritual direction of our 
Nation.
  I believe that our Nation because the great nation that it is not 
only because our Founders worked hard but also because they were a 
disciplined and virtuous people who planted the seeds that grew into 
the great nation that we are today.
  I, too, am a physician, and I began to become concerned about the 
future of our Nation when working in inner-city obstetrics clinics. I 
began to see many, many young people coming in with not only unwanted 
pregnancies but also venereal diseases that in many cases were 
incurable and that were going to lead to permanent scarring that would 
affect their future, their future ability to have a family.
  And then after I finished my training and my time in the military, I 
went into practice in Florida. I has the opportunity to work with a 
very skilled and knowledgeable infections disease specialist, Dr. Tim 
Poyer, who was the only physician in our part of the county seeing AIDS 
patients at the time. And I spent a good part of the last 7 years 
taking care of AIDS patients.
  I have had the opportunity to treat some of the most terrible, 
devastating complications of AIDS that I could ever imagine seeking. I 
have had the opportunity to counsel grieving families. I have had the 
tragic opportunity to have to pronounce many of these young people 
dead, to fill out their death certificates. And I have to say that we 
have a terrible problem in our Nation today with AIDS, and that it is 
very wrong for our leaders here in Washington to propose that the 
distributions of condoms is a solution to this problem. The failure 
rate of these devices in preventing pregnancy in various studies ranges 
from 5 to 25 percent.
  Mr. Speaker, a women can only get pregnant 1 day out of the month, 
and yet the failure rate preventing pregnancy is that high. The failure 
rate for preventing AIDS is much, much higher. Nobody would risk their 
life to anything that has a failure rate that high.
  There are many Americans who are afraid to get on an airplane out of 
a fear of a plane crash, when the failure rate of an airplane is 
something in the range of one in a million, yet the failure of a condom 
to prevent AIDS is much, much higher than that, probably in the order 
of 5 percent or more. Yet our leaders in Washington and now our new 
nominee for Surgeon General is proposing this device as the solution to 
our problem.
  The problem, Mr. Speaker, is the morality that was presented to 
America's youth in the 1960's, that sex outside of marriage is safe and 
acceptable, is wrong. It is leading to unprecedented problems of 
terrible disease amongst our Nation, amongst our young people. And it 
is yielding terrible problems of infertility in our Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, we need a nominee for Surgeon General who will tell the 
young people of America the truth, who will expose the lie of the safe 
sex proselytizers who would have our young people believe that a condom 
is the solution to the problem.
  The solution to the problem is abstinence, Mr. Speaker, and I would 
urge our President to appoint a Surgeon General who supports that 
philosophy.


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