Lee Terry: “Not only on the sure ways that it affects teenagers' lives, but just think of the message that Congress sends, the…”

“Not only on the sure ways that it affects teenagers' lives, but just think of the message that Congress sends, the message we would send the American public and the teenagers, which is that we do not care whether they abstain. Our only message is to teach them how to put a condom on right. That is a terrible message to send to our teenagers today that are looking, as the gentleman said earlier, for the right message. Now, in this chart, and the gentleman and I have just talked about the importance of teaching a message to our teenagers to abstain from sex to prevent an unwanted pregnancy and, in essence, putting themselves into a position of perhaps perpetual poverty, but it is also health reasons, as we discussed in great detail in our committee last week. It is sexually-transmitted diseases. As we have learned from the testimony, and the chairman of our Subcommittee on Health was up here and gave some great testimony from his witnesses that testified before his subcommittee, but the testimony that was presented to the rest of us in our committee was that when we really look at the true science of other ways of preventing STDs, sexually transmitted diseases, and how infective they can truly be, there is only one 100 percent sure way to avoid a sexually transmitted disease.”