Child Custody Protection Act--Continued

CHILD CUSTODY PROTECTION ACT--Continued -- (Senate - July 25, 2006)

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Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, it has always been my firm belief that minors should be required to notify their parents prior to seeking an abortion. I cannot help but believe that in nearly every case, young women do themselves, their babies, and their families well to seek guidance from their parents or legal guardians before making such a serious decision. Most parents honestly do have their daughters' best interests at heart. Consequently, how can parents not be informed when their children are confronted with making one of the most critical decisions of their lives, one which carries with it such extraordinary, expensive, and irretrievable consequences?

I have a long history of support for parental notification in such difficult circumstances. In 1991, I supported legislation that would have required entities receiving grants under Title X of the Public Health Service Act to provide parental notification in the case of minor patients seeking abortions.

While I support parental notification, I would also observe that we, as a nation, must work harder and do more to ensure that young women understand the consequences of unwanted pregnancy before they find themselves in such a predicament. We need to return to a time when abstinence was respected, not denigrated. A time when young men and women were praised and rewarded spiritually, emotionally, and financially--for doing the right thing.

Today, little girls are encouraged to become sexual at younger and younger ages by a consumer society that cares more about what it can sell than what it can teach. The entertainment culture, with its ``sleaze'' does all Americans, and particularly young women, a despicable disservice. Repulsive lyrics and morally offensive videos degrade women to the point where little girls as young as 10 or 12 years of age come to believe that their only real value lies not in themselves but in bearing the child of a teen-aged boy. How truly sad.

We all recognize that the family is, and has been, in crisis. We would all like to see a reduction in unwanted pregnancies and abortion. No one is pro-abortion. But the question remains, what are we doing to prevent these unwanted pregnancies--meaning what are all of us together, on both sides of the aisle, doing to prevent them? Aren't there more creative ways in which we could be bolstering the self-esteem of young women?

Let us not forget that the future of humanity passes through the family, and that each of us must, in our own way, fulfill our duty to preserve the family. As John Kennedy once put it so succinctly and so beautifully, ``On Earth, God's work must truly be our own.''

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