Jerry Moran: “10 years ago, when I was mayor of the city of Alexandria, which is just across the Potomac River from us, perhaps the…”

“10 years ago, when I was mayor of the city of Alexandria, which is just across the Potomac River from us, perhaps the toughest thing that I had to do was to establish a family planning clinic for teenagers. I say I felt I had to because of the intolerably high incidence of teenage pregnancies and abortions and sexually transmitted diseases. So we availed ourselves of all of the data. We talked with the students and parents at length. We had this very same debate that we are having today, except that it lasted a year. Mr. Chairman, we came to the conclusion that if we required parental notification, we might as well save our time and effort and money, because the students were not going to use it. Now, let me say, frankly, it has not been a panacea. We still have nearly 50 percent of the older teenagers who have had sexual intercourse at least once. The national figure is about 40 percent. But what it has done is to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies. It has reduced the number of abortions. It has reduced the number of sexually transmitted diseases. It has improved the health of our student body. And although the information is only anecdotal, from talking with the parents, I know that there are far more parents who are communicating with their teenagers because of the existence of that family planning clinic, because the first thing they suggest is abstinence, and then the second thing they urge is to talk with their parents. It is working.…”