Greg Ganske: “before coming to Congress I was a physician in Des Moines, IA. My wife is a family physician. My wife has helped…”

“before coming to Congress I was a physician in Des Moines, IA. My wife is a family physician. My wife has helped 13-year-old girls deliver their babies. I have taken care of 15-years-olds who have gunshot wounds to the head, and 17-year-olds who have needle track infections up and down their arms and probably have AIDS because of it. I took care of 15-year-old young women who would bring their babies into my office with a cleft lip, a cleft palate, a hand deformity, and there would almost never be a dad there with them. My heart would go out to them because they had a hard road ahead of them. It is one thing to take care of a little baby who is 2 years old as a single parent. It is quite another thing to take care of a 15-year-old boy who has never had the advantage of a dad, who gets involved with a gang, and then ends up shooting himself or somebody else. We have to do something about the illegitimacy problem. In Iowa alone there were 9,000 illegitimate births last year. Next to my office, in neighborhoods close to where I practiced, there was a 60-percent illegitimacy rate in Des Moines, IA. That is why I testified before the Committee on Ways and Means in February 1995. I advocated offering States an incentive to reduce their illegitimacy rates. Increase their block grant if they are successful. I am happy that such a proposal was in our reform bill. It was twice vetoed by the President, but it is in the current bill.”