Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, doesn’t just oppose the Democrats’ health care bill. He thinks it’s a turnoff.
Monday night, as the committee was debating the measure, Barton said, with a nod to Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.: “I think I have the perect antidote, Mr. Chairman, to teenage pregnancy. Require every teenager to sit through one of these markups. If that doesn’t put you in a nonsexual, noninteractive mood, nothing will.”
“I didn’t think it was that funny,” Barton added, after the room exploded into laughter.
Teenage abstinence was a theme during the markup, as the committee at one point considered an amendment that touched on sex education and abstinence.
After it was noted that abstinence education has been around since the early 1980s, Barton even offered a short biographical sketch in the spirit. Also captured for posterity by the C-SPAN cameras, Barton said, “Every girl I dated practiced it, and it was very effective because when I went to pick them up, their fathers reinforced it on me, so it does work and it’s been around much longer than the 1980s.”
