Senate Passes Repeal of Healthy Youth Act, Putting Teen Health and Safety in Jeopardy
For immediate release November 3, 2011 Senate Passes Repeal of Healthy Youth Act, Putting Teen Health and Safety in Jeopardy Republican Senators Use So-Called Special Session on Jobs to Advance Extreme Social Agenda
Madison, WI – Last night, Republicans in the Wisconsin State Senate passed SB 237, repealing the Healthy Youth Act, just weeks after its introduction. Breaking their promise to focus on jobs and the economy, they have used a so-called special session on jobs to advance their extreme social agenda. In just three week's time, they introduced repeal of the Healthy Youth Act, scheduled a hearing and committee vote on the bill, brought it to the Senate floor and passed it. The Healthy Youth Act, signed into law last year, sets standards for sex education and ensures all sex education programs taught in Wisconsin's public schools are medically accurate, comprehensive, and age appropriate. “The Healthy Youth Act ensures that only medically accurate, comprehensive, and age-appropriate information about sexuality is taught in our classrooms,” said NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin Executive Director Lisa Subeck. “Facing epidemic teen pregnancy and STD rates, the Healthy Youth Act provided a common sense solution to ensure teens were armed with the medically accurate information they need to keep themselves safe and healthy.” The repeal of the Healthy Youth Act passed last night by the Senate removes requirements that programs include information about both abstinence and contraceptive use as means to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease, returning to the days of failed abstinence-only sex education. The bill also redefines the term “medically accurate”; eliminates requirements that schools notify parents if they do not have a sex education program; bars medical professionals such as doctors and nurses from teaching sex education; and limits participation by parents and teachers on the advisory committees that make curriculum decisions locally. A comprehensive approach to sex education, emphasizing abstinence while also providing complete and accurate information about contraceptive use, has been proven effective and is supported by medical experts. SB 237 emphasizes a failed abstinence-only approach, ignoring decades of research demonstrating the effectiveness of comprehensive sex education programs. This bill comes in the midst of an onslaught of attacks on women's health led by Governor Scott Walker and his Republican colleagues in the Legislature. Earlier this year, Governor Walker signed a budget bill that included defunding of Planned Parenthood and dismantling of the state's Medicaid Family Planning Program. Other attacks on women's health include proposals to further limit access to Medicaid for uninsured and underinsured families, a ban on insurance coverage for abortion care, new regulations making it harder for women to access abortion services, and a “personhood” bill that redefines a fertilized egg a “person” and makes most forms of birth control illegal. “Governor Walker and Republican leadership scheduled a special legislative session in which they promised to ‘focus like a laser' on job creation,” said Subeck, “Yet it's crystal clear they are far more concerned about ramming through their extreme social agenda than they are about job creation and getting our state's economy back on track.” ###
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