George W Bush: We must support teen abstinence programmes

From a speech given by the US President at West Ashley High School, South Carolina

Today I met Lushanda Bright. She had the toughest job in America, which is being a single mother.

She was 24; she had two young children. She was on unemployment benefits, and they were due to run out in August. But she didn't just want a job, she wanted to do something better for herself and her children. And so she hooked up with a group here, aimed at helping people go from welfare to work; a group that came to be after the 1996 welfare reform law.

They helped Lushanda. They asked what she wanted, they asked what they could do to help. She enrolled in Northeastern Technical College. She completed several courses on medical insurance and billing – while working at a convenience store, and being a mother of two. Today she has a full-time job at Marlboro Park Hospital.

I know that the welfare bill, the re-authorisation, needs to encourage marriage and family. In order to help people, we have got to start with our youngsters early, and the welfare reform effort, the re-authorisation, must support effective teen abstinence programmes. Families are important for America. To help people help themselves, I strongly believe we must encourage teen abstinence programmes. We've got to help people understand that, one, it's okay to abstain. And, secondly, having a baby out of wedlock early in life is going to make it awfully tough – awfully tough on the child, awfully tough on the mom. We've got to make it clear we've got a health issue when it comes to sexually transmitted disease, and that we've got to deal with it in an upfront way with our youngsters.

You know, I've heard all the talk about the abstinence programmes, and this, that and the other. But let me just be perfectly plain. If you're worried about teenage pregnancy, or if you're worried about sexually transmitted disease, abstinence works every single time.

The old culture used to say, if it feels good, just go ahead and do it, and if you've got a problem, blame somebody else. I sense a new change in America where each of us understands we're responsible for the decisions we make in life.

Each of us understands that in order to be a patriotic American, we must love our neighbour like we'd like to be loved ourself [and] help a fellow American in need.