Pending Legislation
Comprehensive Sex Education Bill Introduced
The Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act is introduced to the cheers of feminist abortion rights groups - The CDC released a report indicating teen births and STD's among teens are at a record high - obviously teaching them how to have "safe" sex is not working.
Currently, comprehensive sex-ed programs receive four times the federal funding.
Eleven Senators have sent a letter to Senator Specter asking that he take the lead in protecting abstinence programs. Senator Specter has been an advocate for abstinence education in his state of Pennsylvania.
NARAL Pro-Choice America Praises Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) for leading the effort to establish the first-ever federal program for comprehensive sex education.
Every year we can count on the pro-choice lobby to find someone in Congress that is only too happy to introduce a comprehensive sex education bill. They have plenty of friends. Take a look at the amount of money abortion rights lobby groups donate to political candidates.
This year with a president who campaigned on support for comprehensive sex education for schoolchildren, this bill has a better chance of passing and becoming policy at schools throughout the country.
Abortion rights groups have been critics of the Bush Administration "abstinence only" sex education program for years. Planned Parenthood and the ACLU have been lobbying states to reject funding and cease these programs. Twenty-four states no longer accept funding for abstinence-only education.
The FY2009 omnibus appropriations bill passed last month did fund Community Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) but the amount was reduced from FY2008. Last week eleven Senators sent a letter to Senator Specter, the ranking member on the Labor, Health and Human Services Cmte asking him to protect the CBAE program which they believe is being targeted by abstinence program foes and has the Obama administration support.
Groups supporting abstinence education know these programs are successful. Valerie Huber, Director of National Abstinence Education Association, led a recent effort on Capitol Hill to retain funding for abstinence programs. In a letter to the president, Huber said "partisan rhetoric has mischaracterized abstinence education for too long."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released 2007 figures reporting that the number of teens giving births is at at an all-time high. Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, of Concerned Women for America, spoke with LifeNews this week, stating that responsibility lies with comprehensive sex education programs.
"When over two-thirds of public schools (68 percent) teach comprehensive sex education and those programs receive more than four times the amount of federal funding than the amount designated for abstinence programs, it's time to ask Dr. Phil's question, 'How's that working for you?'" she said.
Recently, North Carolina announced it would continue accepting federal funds for abstinence education. The North Carolina Family Council reported, "the teen pregnancy rate has dropped by a third since abstinence education was started." School districts within the state have the option of teaching abstinence or comprehensive sex education. The ten districts in the state that use the comprehensive approach have higher teen pregnancy and abortion rates.
Obama's support for comprehensive sex education goes beyond just instruction in the classroom. During the campaign, in a response to a questionnaire from RH Reality Check, he stated that he favors ending age restrictions, thereby giving teen girls unlimited access to contraceptives including the controversial "Plan B" emergency contraceptive pill.
There are no long-term studies of the harmful effect of unmonitored use of Plan B by teenage girls over a several year period. Unfortunately, one day we will have this data, but in the meantime our young girls, tomorrow's women, will be at risk, all in the name of sexual and reproductive freedom.
read more : Lawmaker, Sex-Ed Advocates Decline to Specify at What Age Public Schools Should Teach Children about Sex
Calling All Catholics
Pope Benedict identified three "non-negotiable" principles whereby the Catholic Church must intervene in the public square. The three non-negotiable issues are the protection of life in all its stages, the protection of traditional marriage, and the protection of the right of parents to educate their children.
There is an on-going strategic effort to undermine parental authority by abortion rights groups and the ACLU. They want, and our new president supports, confidential "reproductive health" rights for underage girls. This includes access to birth control, emergeny contraception - Plan B, and obtaining an abortion without parental consent during school hours.
Parents, do not permit groups like Planned Parenthood, NARAL and the ACLU to undermine your authority as the primary educators of your children, by allowing them to influence policy and indoctrinate your children through immoral sex education programs in schools. Know the sex-education curriculum and the "reproductive health" policies in your child's school.
Stop the oversexualization of our young children from harmful comprehensive sex education programs. Ask you lawmakers to oppose the "Real Act" and to protect federal funding for Abstinence-only education.