Democratic lawmakers and reproductive and sexual health advocates gathered on Capitol Hill to introduce legislation aimed at mandating comprehensive and inclusive sexual education in the face of repeated Trump administration attacks on existing programs.
Several Democratic congresspeople, including House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings (D-MD), pro choice caucus co-chair Barbara Lee (D-CA), and women’s caucus chair Brenda Lawrence (D-MI) spoke at a press briefing on May 1 calling for two bills, the Real Education for Healthy Youth Act (REHYA)and the Youth Access to Sexual Health Services Act (YASHS), which would eliminate federal funding for abstinence only education and help ensure comprehensive sex ed for all youth in the United States.
“I’m glad to be here with our champions, our elected officials, and also our partners who are standing on the right side of history,” said Dr. Leana Wen, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in an interview with Teen Vogue. “I can’t believe that it’s 2019 and we’re still arguing about sex ed, which scientific study after scientific study shows is essential to reducing sexually transmitted infections, to reducing unintended pregnancies, and more importantly empowering all people to make decisions for themselves about when and how to start their families.”
The introduction of the bills coincides with the start of Sex Ed for All month, in concert with a nationwide initiative pushing for comprehensive and inclusive sex ed among several advocacy groups including Planned Parenthood, Advocates for Youth, Power to Decide, Healthy Teen Network, the Guttmacher Institute, and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS).
According to a 2018 Planned Parenthood study, 98% of Americans believe that sex ed is important, and yet implementation of comprehensive programs has lagged far behind demand. The Trump administration has continuously sought to rollback critical fact-based sex ed programs like the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPPP), which Trump has proposed eliminating in each of the three budget proposals his administration has produced since taking office. The administration has instead pushed for abstinence-only sex ed, which has been rebranded as so-called “sexual risk avoidance” programs.
While the text of the two bills will be released at a later date, advocates expect similar wording to previous versions of bills that were introduced in the last congress. Both bills would provide funding for comprehensive and inclusive sex ed programs through federal grant programs. The YASHS focuses primarily on expanding access to sex ed to marginalized communities, such as racial minorities and LGBTQ youth. The REHYA delineates program standards to receive sex ed funding, including ensuring that all educational material be medically accurate and based in science.
The bills introduced today seek to push back against the harm the administration has caused to sex ed programs throughout the country. “My legislation… expands evidence-based adolescent sexual health education promotion programs, it eliminates the abstinence-only until marriage state grant program. I mean isn’t that crazy? Abstinence-only in 2019!” said Lee, who noted that she was a teen parent herself in her remarks at the event. “It ensures that federal funds are spent on effective, age-appropriate, medically-accurate programs that support our young people’s lifelong health.”
Cummings highlighted how critical it is to equip young people with the information they’ll need to navigate their own sexual and reproductive health needs into adulthood. “Our children are the living messengers we send to a future we will never see,” he said in his remarks at the briefing. “So we want to send them to that future healthy, strong, vibrant, and with their destinies in their own control. Many young people face bad systemic inequities and structural barriers to making sure they can be healthy and stay that way throughout their lives. Access to quality information and education about young people’s sexual health is a critical step towards addressing various [health disparities].”
SIECUS President and CEO Christine Soyong Harley detailed how harmful abstinence-only programs are to U.S. youth in an interview after the event with Teen Vogue. “It is really important to understand that what they are calling ‘sexual risk avoidance’ is abstinence-only, it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing approach,” she said. “They are trying to use language that pretends that they’re not talking about abstinence-only, but they are still pushing the same sort of lessons that make women feel like they are only supposed to receive men, [and] they are supposed to make themselves subordinate to men. It is heteronormative, it doesn’t acknowledge and refuses to acknowledge LGBTQ identities, trans identities. It is shaming.”
Ultimately, the lawmakers and advocates involved envision a world that takes into account the sexual and reproductive needs of everyone as they are. “Really our goal is quite simple,” said Harley in her remarks at the briefing. “Sex education that meets the needs of all young people in all of the ways they show up in the classroom.”
