[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 145 (Thursday, September 27, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1997]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


    TMA, ABSTINENCE EDUCATION, AND QI PROGRAMS EXTENSION ACT OF 2007

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                          HON. JAMES P. MORAN

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 26, 2007

  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 
3668, but with a great sense of frustration. H.R. 3668 temporarily 
extends a number of expiring health programs which low-income 
individuals depend on. Unfortunately, these effective, important 
programs are held hostage through their attachment to the Title V 
Abstinence Education program, a program which is ineffective, which 
prizes ideology over science, and which harms our children through the 
provision of medically inaccurate information.
  Mr. Speaker, teen pregnancy is a serious issue in this country. In 
the United States, three in ten girls become pregnant by age 20--nearly 
double the teen pregnancy rate in Great Britain, four times the rate in 
France and Germany, and nearly ten times the rate in Japan. The 
National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy estimates that teen 
pregnancies impose an additional $9.1 billion in societal costs every 
year in the United States--and this is after teen pregnancy and birth 
rates declined by one-third in the past decade.
  It should come as no great surprise that the costs of teen pregnancy 
are so high--pregnant teenagers are substantially less likely than 
their peers to finish high school, attend college, or go on to pursue 
professional careers. Pregnant teenagers are less likely to obtain 
prenatal care, exposing their babies to an increased risk of low birth 
weight and of being born prematurely. At the age of 2, they have 
significantly lower cognitive test scores. And because the majority of 
children from teen pregnancies are born to unmarried women, they are 
more likely to be poor, drop out of high school, and have poor grades 
and school attendance records. This is, of course, to say nothing of 
abortion--which is still a major consequence of teen and unintended 
pregnancy.
  Teen pregnancy is a serious problem, and it demands a serious 
solution. Of course we should want to delay the onset of sexual 
activity in our children--what parent of a teenager wouldn't want that? 
But we cannot let that desire blind us to the very real fact that 
teenagers, despite our best intentions, will and do have sex, and that 
our wanting them not to does not absolve us of our obligation to 
protect them and keep them safe. Pretending that sexual activity among 
teenagers does not exist will not reduce the number of new sexually 
transmitted infections, it will not reduce the number of teenage girls 
who become pregnant, and it will not reduce the number of abortions 
performed every year.
  We have both a practical and a moral obligation to ensure that 
American teenagers and their families have the resources and the 
knowledge to make the right decisions about how to prevent teen 
pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted infections. When the 
House passed the CHAMP Act in August, the bill included a 
reauthorization of the Title V Abstinence Education program that would 
have ensured that when we teach children about the importance of 
abstaining from sexual activity, we do it in a way that is age-
appropriate, medically accurate and science-based, and that we allow 
States the flexibility they need to respond to conditions in their 
schools in an appropriate way.
  I commend Chairman Dingell for including these improvements in the 
CHAMP Act, and I express my sincerest hope and conviction that any 
long-term reauthorization of Title V that passes this House this year 
will include similar language. Just this year, reports by the House 
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, Mathematical Policy 
Research and the Government Accountability Office indicate that many of 
the programs funded through Title V contain staggering medical 
inaccuracies, and that students actually understand less about sexually 
transmitted diseases after having completed the programs than they did 
when they began. We have spent $1.25 billion on these programs since 
Fiscal Year 2001, paying for teachers to tell children that ``relying 
on condoms is like playing Russian Roulette,'' and that ``AIDS can be 
transmitted through skin-to-skin contact.'' I believe we can and must 
do better, and I will continue to fight for responsible, science-based 
programs that will meaningfully protect our children.

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