Currently, state regulations require only that students learn about the transmission of HIV/AIDS. There are no other mandated standards. As such, what students learn in sex education can vary widely from classroom to classroom across the state.
Under the Healthy Youth Act, youngsters would get age-appropriate and medically accurate sex education. Not only would they learn about condoms, but also about being in a monogamous relationship with a disease-free partner.
Abstinence would still be taught as the only foolproof way to avoid pregnancies and diseases. It should reinforce what is taught at home, and parents would still retain the ultimate responsibility for teaching their children about sex.
State Rep. Chelsea Wagner (D., Allegheny), the bill's sponsor, said the measure was in response to an alarming and growing health crisis affecting young adults who engage in risky behavior that could have deadly or lasting consequences.
The United States has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the developed world. Further, at least 3.2 million teenage girls (about one in four) have had at least one of four common sexually transmitted diseases.
The statistics show that merely encouraging teens to wait until marriage to have sex doesn't always work. Young adults need an approach different from the Bush-era abstinence-only programs.
Besides being ineffective, the abstinence-only approach has been costly and a drain on social and health services. New sexually transmitted infections cost the nation's health-care system billions of dollars annually.
The Wagner bill would correctly give local districts some flexibility to select a curriculum to meet their needs. Parents would also have the option to exclude their children from a comprehensive sex-education class.
The bill cleared the House Education Committee last month, and proponents are hopeful it could come up for a vote soon. But it faces an uncertain future in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Lawmakers should support the bill and give students the education that they need.
