Frank Lautenberg: “the amendment I am offering gets to the heart of the issue this bill purportedly means to address; that is, reducing the…”

“the amendment I am offering gets to the heart of the issue this bill purportedly means to address; that is, reducing the number of abortions. The best way to reduce the number of abortions is to prevent teen pregnancies in the first place. It is that simple. The amendment I am offering, along with Senators Menendez, Clinton, Schumer, Kennedy, Kerry, and Feinstein, is aimed at dramatically reducing teen pregnancy rates in the United States. This amendment will assist efforts by nonprofit organizations, schools, and public health agencies to reduce teen pregnancy through awareness, education, and abstinence programs. The root problem we are talking about today is not abortion, it is teen pregnancy. If we do nothing about teen pregnancy, yet pass this punitive bill, then it proves that this exercise is only a political charade and not a serious effort to combat the problem. The U.S. teen pregnancy rate is the highest by far among developed countries, and here is some of the evidence we use to prove this. In Germany, the teen pregnancy rate is 16 per 1,000. The U.S. rate is 84 per 1,000. I ask my colleagues to look at this chart which shows several countries teen pregnancy rates compared with the U.S. This is teen pregnancy rate for ages 15 to 19, among developed countries per 1,000 persons. In Sweden, it is 25 young women per 1,000; in France, it is 20 young women per 1,000; in Canada, 46; in Great Britain, 47; and here we are. Are we the winners in this contest?…”