Andrea Seastrand: “I stand here very strongly supporting the Istook amendment for parental consent. I have to say there is life after…”

“I stand here very strongly supporting the Istook amendment for parental consent. I have to say there is life after teenagehood. My two children are now in their 20's, but as a mom and as a former teacher, I wholeheartedly support the idea and the main issue of this amendment, which is to give back parental consent, that moms and dads can have the right to talk with their children about this and not feel that it has been handed over to the Federal Government. I might say that I have spent a couple of times in my office as a State legislator with moms crying in the office because they found out that their children were able to go to a clinic and get much information and the parents who really wanted to speak to their children about this were left out of the loop. Now, I want to remind people, yes, the State legislatures across America, if they so choose, can waive the parental consent requirement, and that is very important with me. But I wanted to point out that since title X has been in existence, since 1970, we are talking about a program that wanted very sincerely, when it started, to decrease out-of-wedlock and teenage pregnancies, and there has been a lot of times that it has been successful. But, Mr. Chairman, we just have to look at our own local programs and talk to families and know the statistics are saying that it is skyrocketing. The teenage out-of-wedlock births are skyrocketing and children need to have moms and dads involved in their life.”