[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 68 (Wednesday, May 12, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H3067]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


          TEENAGE PREGNANCY, A CONCERN FOR EVERYONE IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I will be brief, but I did want to join in 
the participation of what we have seen here tonight.
  I am the cochair person of the Congressional Advisory Committee to 
Prevent Teen Pregnancy. But I think we all should be cochairs of that. 
I think that is a subject of huge importance to everybody in America 
today.
  We still in America have the highest rate of teen pregnancy, higher 
than some of the Third World countries, in the world, which is pretty 
amazing when we consider the advances which have been made in American 
society in so many other ways, because I consider this to be, frankly, 
a high negative.
  We are doing better. Our statistics in the last 3 or 4 years indicate 
that we are starting to go down in the rate of teenage pregnancy. It is 
a tremendous problem, obviously, because we have a lot of unwed very 
young mothers with absolutely no income sources whatsoever; with young 
men out there who do not have a clue about how to do anything about a 
family, or earn any income or whatever it may be. So it is almost a 
direct descent into some sort of economic help from the government in 
the form of welfare or something else.
  In fact, the statistics are something like that if you graduate from 
high school and you wait until 20 to get married and you never have a 
criminal record, the chances are something like 80 percent you will 
never be in poverty. But if indeed any of those things happen, if you 
get pregnant early or do not graduate from high school or have a 
criminal record, the chances are almost overwhelming that you are going 
to live in poverty at some time during the course of your life.
  So it is very evident, with perhaps a few exceptions, it is evident 
that we are all far better off if we indeed wait with respect to the 
concept of giving birth and getting pregnant. Obviously, I guess we 
would preach abstinence first.
  That has a lot of good tones to it in terms of what it means in the 
sense that you do not have any of the mental concerns of having been 
sexually involved, and of course you are going to prevent disease 
because you have not been involved, and obviously no pregnancies are 
going to take place. But at some point it often goes beyond that with 
our young people, and they do get involved.
  At that point we need to talk about planning and contraceptives. I 
think we have a more open approach. The idea is to avoid pregnancy. By 
avoiding pregnancy, you avoid all of those problems, and of course 
avoid the horrible problem of abortion, which is something that is 
abhorred by practically everybody in the country, whether they are pro-
choice or pro-life.

                              {time}  1845

  So we have to do these things. I see it. I see it in my State of 
Delaware. I have seen it in Dover High School at a wellness center just 
last week, last Friday. I talked to four or five kids who are going 
through programs there to help deal with the subject of pregnancy. They 
are talking with each other.
  We have wellness programs in all but one high school in the State of 
Delaware now that we did not have before. They have sessions in which 
they can actually get together and begin to talk about these issues.
  That is why I think we are starting to make an impact with respect to 
the rate of teen pregnancy in the United States of America, which again 
is a positive sign. But there are still, as I said, other things that 
we have to do to continue to build on this recent record of success.
  So I know a lot of the Members of Congress are vitally interested in 
this subject, and we thank them for their time and attention on it. 
Hopefully, the public will weigh in as well. If we do, we can prevent a 
lot of the hardship, a lot of the problems, a lot of the stress and 
strain on individuals and families that occur in this country because 
of teenage pregnancy that takes place across the United States. I think 
we can do it, and I am pleased to help be a part of this effort.

                          ____________________