Let’s have sex education

You have to wonder about Nevada sometimes. You’d think a libertarian state, proud of its history of quickie divorces and legalized prostitution, would not be squeamish about providing comprehensive sex education as part of its school curriculum.

You’d be wrong.

Perhaps the word “comprehensive” is the problem. According to Janine Hansen, who appeared recently on Ralston Reports, “comprehensive means radical.” Meanwhile, Annette Magnus of Planned Parenthood of Southern Nevada gave her definition of comprehensive as “it’ll cover a wide range of topics.” You know, updated topics like sexting, cyber-bullying and dating violence.

Although Nevada law currently requires all school districts to teach sex education, it doesn’t stipulate that said education must be medically accurate and age-appropriate, setting aside national standards so local school boards can determine how comprehensive they want their sexual education. This means some districts focus on abstinence-only as the best approach despite decades of Nevada ranking among the highest states for teen pregnancy. Others leave it up to individual teachers or schools to decide what’s important and what’s not.

AB 230, sponsored by David Bobzien, D-Reno, and a host of other progressive legislators, implements comprehensive, medically accurate, age-appropriate sexual health education with the goal of reducing Nevada’s fourth highest in the country rating, with over 7,000 teen pregnancies a year.

The bill is a top priority of Planned Parenthood and other health organizations that view its passage as the best method of reducing teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. The groups point out that young people, ages 15 to 24, represent about 25 percent of the sexually experienced population, but acquire nearly half of all new STDs. In 2009, young people, ages 13 to 29, made up 39 percent of all new HIV infections.

AB 230 directs school districts to create a community advisory board to consider and recommend a curriculum to be approved by the local school board and allows the district to approve additional professionals to teach the course. It also requires the State Board of Education to create standards for medically accurate instruction on sexuality, healthy relationships and sexual responsibility.

Dating violence continues to plague teen relationships, often carrying over to the adult years and contributing to Nevada’s first-in-the-nation status of women murdered by men, most often an intimate partner. One evaluation of an adolescent dating violence prevention program, “Safe Dates,” found that including this issue as part of comprehensive sex education reduced physical and sexual dating violence by 60 percent. Education works.

When the bill was heard last week in front of packed hearing rooms in Las Vegas and Carson City, there were passionate speeches on both sides, including a state assemblywoman who talked about growing up in a family of 13, led by a single father, with sisters who were all teen mothers. She had an abortion at 16 because no one had reached out to her on the subject and suggested there was another way.

The capital press corps largely ignored the four-and-a-half hour hearing, leaving news coverage to a liberal blogger, Emmily Bristol, also known on Twitter as TheSinCitySiren who posted a lengthy piece that evening on her blog (http://sincitysiren.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/lower_ed/).

In a stunning display of stuck-in-the-dark-ages thinking, scores of people testified against the bill, leaving one to wonder if they’d read the card on the table that reminds witnesses it’s a misdemeanor not to tell the truth when testifying. Apparently, their version of the truth includes debunked theories that abortion causes breast cancer, or misinformation such as condoms don’t prevent sexually transmitted disease or pregnancy. One suggested the bill was intended to brainwash kids to want abortions and to put “certain ideas” in their heads to encourage homosexuality.

Sounds to me like a lot of people need remedial sex education.