Two stalwart champions of comprehensive sexuality education, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), introduced the Real Education for Healthy Youth Act (S. 1782, H.R. 3324) on November 2, 2011. This sweeping new legislation encapsulates advocates’ goals for federally funded comprehensive sexuality education programs, building on the success of the two current federal funding streams that can fund medically accurate, age-appropriate sex education—the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiativeand the Personal Responsibility Education Program.  If enacted, the Real Education for Healthy Youth Act will provide young people with the “information and skills they need to make informed, responsible, and healthy decisions in order to become sexually healthy adults and have healthy relationships.”[1]

 

“Growing up isn’t easy and our kids find themselves in tough situations every day,” said Senator Lautenberg.  “They need all the information to make smart choices and ‘abstinence-only’ programs don’t work.  It’s time to bring sex education up-to-date to reflect the real life situations facing young Americans.”[2]

 

The bill includes a Sense of Congress mandating that sexuality education programs funded by the federal government should not only seek to prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV but also must promote healthy, safe relationships; include the most current and accurate scientific information available;  be evidence-based or augment the base of effective comprehensive sexuality education programs; and “promote and uphold the rights of young people to information in order to make healthy and responsible decisions about their sexual health.”[3]  In addition, the legislation asserts that federal taxpayer dollars should not fund programs that are medically inaccurate or misleading; promote gender stereotypes; stigmatize young people who are sexually active or those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT); or “are inconsistent with the ethical imperatives of medicine and public health.”[4]

 

“Comprehensive sex education programs are successful at reducing behaviors that put young people at risk,” said Congresswoman Lee.  “Research has shown programs that combine information about abstinence and contraception effectively delay the onset of sexual intercourse, reduce the number of sexual partners, and increase contraceptive use among teens.  These programs also reduce unintended pregnancy and the transmission of [STDs], including HIV.”[5]

 

The Real Education for Healthy Youth Act would provide grants for comprehensive sexuality education programs for adolescents and young people at institutions of higher education.  Grant recipients must provide programs that are medically accurate, age- and developmentally appropriate, evidence-based or include elements of programs proven to change sexual behavior in young people, and inclusive of all students regardless of gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation. 

Funded programs for adolescents must go beyond simply offering medically accurate and developmentally appropriate information on preventing unintended pregnancy and STDs, including HIV—they also must:

 

 

For adolescents, programs that operate in areas that experience high rates of unintended pregnancy and STDs, including HIV, dating violence, and sexual assault will be given the highest priority. 

 

The Real Education for Healthy Youth Act also provides funding for comprehensive sexuality education programs that provide instruction on “abstinence and contraception; reducing dating violence, sexual assault, bullying, and harassment; increasing healthy relationships; and academic achievement” at four-year colleges, community colleges, vocational schools, and other institutes of higher education.[6]  Priority will be given to schools with a high percentage of lower-income students, as well as those serving students from racial and ethnic groups are at higher risk of negative sexual health outcomes such as African Americans, Latinos and Latinas, Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Asian American, and Native American Pacific Islander.

 

In addition to funding comprehensive sexuality education programs for youth and young adults, the Real Education for Healthy Youth Act would provide grants for pre-service and in-service teacher training for comprehensive sexuality educators teaching in grades kindergarten through 12.  Finally, the legislation would amend the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S. Code §300ee) to allow LGBT-inclusive education in public schools and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S. Code §7906(a)) to permit public schools to distribute contraceptives. 

 

“SIECUS’ goal is to create a sexually healthy America. We have recently made advances in the way our federal government addresses sex education, but we still have a long way to go before the health and education needs of youth and young adults are fully met,” said Monica Rodriguez, President and CEO of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS).  “The Real Education for Healthy Youth Act sets the new gold standard for the federal government: what it should, and should not, be supporting with regards to sex education. This legislation sets the path forward to ensure that adolescents and young adults finally receive the information and skills they need to make informed, responsible, and safe decisions about their sexual health.”

 

The Real Education for Healthy Youth Act was introduced with six original cosponsors in the Senate and 26 original cosponsors in the House of Representatives.

 

Legislation Introduced to Restore Funding to Failed Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs

 

While comprehensive sexuality education advocates were working with legislators to introduce legislation that will provide young people with medically accurate, age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education, including information about both abstinence and contraception, abstinence-only-until-marriage proponents continued to seek funding for their failed programs.  On September 20, 2011, Congressman Randy Hultgren (R-IL) introduced the Abstinence Education Reallocation Act of 2011 (H.R. 2874), with no original cosponsors.  This legislation would provide $110 million dollars each year for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, essentially resurrecting the now-defunct Community-Based Abstinence Education program.  Funding for this program would come from the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which was created in health care reform legislation.  All but three of the bill’s cosponsors voted to abolish the Prevention and Public Health Fund in April 2011. 

 

The Abstinence Education Reallocation Act of 2011 mandates that funded programs emphasize the “clear advantage of reserving human sexual activity for marriage, as a key contributing factor in the prevention of poverty and the preservation of physical and emotional health” as well as the “individual, economic, and societal advantages of bearing children within the context of a committed marital relationship in order to form healthy marriages and safe and stable families.”[7]  In addition, the bill denies young people the information and skills they need to make responsible decisions and lead safe and healthy lives, as it includes a “focused priority on the superior health benefits of sexual abstinence, ensuring that any information provided on contraception does not exaggerate its effectiveness in preventing sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancies.”[8]  The legislation states that funded programs be evidence-based but does not insist that they be proven effective at altering sexual behavior; rather, the programs simply must have “a clear theoretical base.”[9]

 

“SIECUS opposes the Abstinence Education Reallocation Act of 2011, which would create new federal funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs—which no peer-reviewed study has found to be broadly effective at changing sexual behavior.  In this difficult fiscal environment, we can ill afford to squander taxpayer dollars on these ineffective programs that leave our young people at risk by denying them information,” said Jen Heitel Yakush, director of public policy at SIECUS.  “By focusing solely on abstinence, this legislation continues the same old story of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs—stigmatizing young people who are or have been sexually active, those who are survivors of sexual assault, and those who are LGBT or have LGBT parents.”  

 

The Abstinence Education Reallocation Act of 2011 currently has 57 cosponsors in the House of Representatives. Proponents of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs have yet to garner sufficient support in the Senate, and no companion bill has been introduced at the time of writing.   

 

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