Lawmakers in several states have launched an offensive to eliminate abstinence-only education. That campaign has advanced furthest in Washington.
The state Senate there passed a bill on Wednesday, 30-19, that will mandate all public schools teach Planned Parenthood-endorsed sex-ed curriculum that's used in Seattle schools.
"We're just sick about it," Sen. Val Stevens told CitizenLink. "It's probably the worst piece of legislation that we've passed in the 15 years I've been in the Legislature."
The measure would specifically ban local districts from teaching the value of purity.
"The bill will eliminate the opportunity for the schools to teach abstinence education, unless they also present the 'medically correct' -- as it is being called -- curriculum that will be developed by the state superintendent of public instruction," said Stevens, a Republican from Arlington.
LeAnna Benn, director of Spokane-based Teen-Aid, said the curriculum requires that students be taught about condoms and contraceptives.
"The state has already done training on a program called, 'Making Sense of Abstinence,' " she said. "Two of the chapters are on birth-control measures and how to have access for an abortion."
Benn said the legislation is being pushed by Planned Parenthood, NARAL and a gay-activist group, Equal Rights Washington.
Shepherd Smith, president of The Institute for Youth Development in Washington, D.C., said what's happening in the Pacific Northwest is just a symptom of a larger effort to undermine true abstinence programs.
"One of the tactics is to say that the curricula used by abstinence educators do not contain 'medically and scientifically accurate' information," he said. "That statement on its face is largely, if not wholly, inaccurate."
The abstinence-only curriculum in use today is highly credible, Smith added.
"We've been reviewing abstinence-education materials for about 10 years now," he said. "We find increasingly that there is very little, if any, information in them that is inaccurate from a medical perspective."
Linda Klepacki, R.N., M.P.H., analyst for sexual health at Focus on the Family Action, said no one should be misled -- opponents have no proof that abstinence-only curricula is inaccurate.
"What they are saying is that, in order to be medically and scientifically accurate, you must be verified and supported in your research by peer review," she said. "Abstinence education cannot get into peer-review journals because the journals are controlled by far-left liberal organizations that do not allow us to publish. That automatically eliminates abstinence-only education, from their standpoint."
Klepacki said challenges of scientific accuracy are in the hopper in the Colorado, Iowa, Hawaii and Arizona Legislatures. Other states may soon be added.
"We're seeing almost the same language in bill after bill, in state after state," she said. "It does look like there is a concerted effort to do this at the state level before a federal bill is released."
Benn said a federally mandated curriculum would likely mandate discussion of birth control and homosexuality.
TAKE ACTION
If you live in the state of Washington, please contact your representative and insist that he or she vote against Senate Bill 5297.
For help in contacting your lawmakers, please visit the CitizenLink Action Center.
(Paid for by Focus on the Family Action)
