Teenage Pregnancy ~ Paperback ~ United States Congress Join Committee

Excerpt from Teenage Pregnancy: The Economic and Social Costs: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Education and Health on the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, One Hundred Second Congress, Second Session, November 24, 1992 Congress of the United States, Subcommittee on Education and health, Joint Economic Committee, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:18 a.m., in room 2359, Rayburn House Office Building, Honorable James H. Scheuer (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representative Scheuer. Also present: William Buechner and David Podoff, professional staff members. Opening Statement Of Representative Scheuer, Vice Chairman Representative Scheuer. This is a Subcommittee of the Joint Economic Committee. We have a broad ranging mission looking at the economy of our country and the things that impact it. When Governor Bill Clinton was elected President on November 3, it seemed to me that we ought to be on the eve of a revolution in reproductive rights, facilities, services and reproductive research, and that at long last the needs of young women in our society for contraceptive care and for a total concern for their reproductive privileges is long overdue. Since we are on the brink of this true revolution, it would be helpful for the guidance of the Congress and to be helpful to the President, to have a hearing and think about this subject, and to advise both the Congress and the President. Just consider these facts: Every 21 seconds a 15- to 19-year-old woman becomes sexually active for the first time. Every 64 seconds an infant is born to a teenage mother, truly children having children. Between 1986 and 1990 adolescent childbearing increased 16 percent, from 38.4 percent to 44.6 percent. Every year more than a million teenagers become pregnant. Every year a million girls become pregnant, and half of these pregnancies result in the birth of a child, a half million cases, 500,000 children having children. The vast majority of these children are born into families headed by a single mother - the most poverty-stricken group in America - the type of family that is least able to nurture and raise a young infant to maturity with all of the life support, the caring, the love, the nutrition, the rich exposure to life's exciting possibilities, the education and skills training that they need. These women are not yet ready to have families. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.