[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9393]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



  ENCOURAGING MEMBERS TO SUPPORT THE TEENAGE PREGNANCY PREVENTION ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all of those who have 
joined me, and the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Connie Morella) who 
has spoken earlier, and several others. The gentleman from Delaware 
(Mr. Castle) is here, and the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps) 
is here, who are all taking active time out to speak.
  Mr. Speaker, we are here this evening because we care about our young 
people. We are here because we recognize that May has been designated 
as Teenage Pregnancy Month.
  We are here to acknowledge the success of efforts that have been made 
as a result of communities working together and a variety of 
communities doing different things, pulling together parents, schools, 
communities, churches; understanding that there are no easy answers to 
teenage pregnancy, but understanding that it is a serious problem that 
indeed deserves our concentration and a concentrated effort on the part 
of all of us.
  Abstinence certainly is the main program that we advocate, and feel 
that it is one sure method that young people can be assured of, if 
indeed they have that and practice that. Abstinence certainly would not 
only reduce and prevent teenage pregnancy, but it also will reduce and 
prevent many of the transmitted disease as they relate to being 
sexually active, none more drastically than the spread of AIDS, which 
takes too many lives.
  However, abstinence alone will not do it, because too many young 
people, obviously, are involved. So we also advocate that there should 
be Planned Parenthood, there should be contraceptives, there should be 
a variety of educational counseling, health clinics.
  There should be the community, the church, faith-based activities 
that encourage young people's development. We believe that if young 
people have a strategy for the future and have hope about their career 
and have economic security, they are more likely to be about developing 
themselves, rather than getting involved in behavior that is self-
destructive, including premature sex.
  Once a young person is pregnant, there are no good choices. Indeed, 
we know, because there is research that shows without a doubt teenage 
pregnancy not only brings stress to the teenage mother or the teenage 
father and their family, and the young person that is born, but also it 
is costly to society.
  Research has shown that a teenaged daughter giving birth to a 
daughter, that daughter grows up and is 83 percent more likely to be a 
teenage mother herself. A son who is given birth by a teenage mother, 
that young man has a likelihood 2.7 times greater to get in trouble and 
to either have as his hope for the future going to prison or death. 
Those are not statistics that we can look and think that this is an 
easy answer by saying that that is just one approach. Several 
approaches must be used.
  This is a serious problem because we think that teenage destructive 
behavior eventually is a continuum, whether it is getting involved with 
premature sexual activities or involved in drugs or involved in crime, 
all of the things that do not allow that young person to be the person 
that he or she has the potential of being and making a contribution. 
Society loses, not only through the costs to imprison that young man or 
the costs for sexual disease and transmission of those diseases, but 
the loss of the contribution that those young people could make is even 
more severe.
  So we are here tonight to tell young people and adults that this is a 
serious problem. We are here to reinforce their value to us, and how we 
care about them.
  I just want to mention things that we do in our district. We have now 
had several forums. This year alone we have had two. We had one last 
Saturday, where we had more than 50 young people and adults to come. We 
had ministers, we had counselors, we had health professionals, we had 
young people who were engaged with other young people. They had a teen 
summit where they talked to each other. It is surprising what teenagers 
say to themselves and to each other. They indeed can give some of the 
best wisdom.
  I urge all of our colleagues to engage themselves with young people. 
Again, I want to thank all the Members who have come to speak on this 
important subject.

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