House Democrats Introduce Planned Parenthood-Centered Sex Ed Bills

A demonstrator opposed to the Senate Republican health-care holds a sign that reads 'I Sta
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Dr. Susan Berry

House Democrats joined with Planned Parenthood last week to introduce two measures that would ensure the abortion chain’s brand of sex ed — which focuses on contraception, abortion, and LGBTQ sex — receives federal funding.

Dr. Leana Wen, who heads Planned Parenthood, joined House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings (D-MD), pro-choice caucus chair Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), and women’s caucus chair Brenda Lawrence (D-MI) at a press briefing in which they praised the introduction of the Real Education for Healthy Youth Act (REHYA) and the Youth Access to Sexual Health Services Act (YASHS).

“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,” Wen told left-wing media Teen Vogue in an interview. She added:

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.

According to Teen Vogue:

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.

Elizabeth Johnston, aka The Activist Mommy and organizer of the international Sex Ed Sit Out in April 2018, told Breitbart News that she and her organization are prepared to battle Planned Parenthood’s “obscene agenda.”

“The perverted purveyors of moral indecency and obscenity over at Planned Parenthood have struck once again with federal legislation to rape the minds of public school students at taxpayer expense,” Johnston said. “Planned Parenthood, one of the most powerful Leftist lobbies in our nation, is known for teaching public school students how to sodomize one another, how to pleasure themselves with sex toys, and even how to participate in playing with blood and sadomasochistic sexual activity.”

The bills were introduced as Planned Parenthood joined with its Democrat allies and partner groups to declare May to be Sex Ed for All month.

The abortion vendor said in a joint statement with Advocates for Youth, Healthy Teen Network, Power to Decide, and Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), that young people “need and deserve” sexual education in order to “live life on their own terms.”

“Sex Ed For All is our effort to help young people in marginalized communities,” the statement read, “including communities of color, LGBTQ young people, immigrants, those with lower incomes, those living in rural areas and those in foster care have access to the information and care they need to ensure their lifelong sexual and reproductive health.”

The two measures directly target the Trump administration’s preference for sex education programs that operate as true public health programs in that they encourage young people not to engage in sex — a high-risk behavior for children and adolescents. The legislation would eliminate federal funding for the Trump administration’s programs, leaving taxpayer support only to comprehensive sex education programs (CSE) — many of which Planned Parenthood directs and teaches.

Planned Parenthood, however, the nation’s largest abortion provider, has been the focus of many scandals over the years, including Medicaid fraud, allegations of child sex abuse cover-up, and, more recently, alleged profiting from the harvesting and sale of body parts of babies aborted in its clinics.

“[T]he Trump Administration continues to fund inaccurate and dangerous abstinence-only programs, most recently calling them Sexual Risk Avoidance (SRA) programs,” said Debra Hauser, president of Advocates for Youth. “Withholding lifesaving information, as SRA and abstinence-only programs do, leaves young people vulnerable to unplanned pregnancy and STIs, and ill equipped to set boundaries, ask for consent, and navigate healthy relationships as they mature.”

“[T]he legislation being introduced this month bring[s] us closer toward our goal of recognizing the diverse lived experiences of today’s young people and providing them with the high-quality, shame-free sex ed they should have already been receiving,” also stated Christine Soyong Harley, SIECUS president.

Nevertheless, Johnston asserted:

Could someone please explain how Planned Parenthood, an organization that profits heavily from abortion, is allowed to be in our schools teaching students about sexual activity? Doesn’t anyone see the extreme conflict of interest? The more students are sexually active and get pregnant, the more money Planned Parenthood makes. Follow the money, get to your school board meeting, and kick Planned Parenthood out of your school district. They have no business anywhere near our children!

While the CSE advocates insist their brand of sex ed — prevalent for several decades in U.S. schools — reduces STIs, the American College of Pediatricians, a national nonsectarian organization of child and adolescent physicians and health professionals, observed most CSE curricula operate on the premise that sexual activity for teens is normal and acceptable.

The pediatricians say this ideology has not served teen public health well since, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes, “abstinence from vaginal, anal, and oral intercourse is the only 100% effective way to prevent HIV, other STDs, and pregnancy.”

The College adds that while the common CSE ideology that risk avoidance is “not attainable, and the best anyone can do to help our youth is to reduce risk by promoting contraceptive education and services,” is not helping young people to remain free of STDs, since even condoms, if used, are not 100 percent effective against STDs.

“In short, Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE) is not comprehensive,” the College reports. “Instead, CSE is almost entirely focused on skills to help teens reduce the physical consequences of sex through the use of contraception.”

“We are organizing, through Sex Ed Sit Out, a parental revolution the likes of which Washington has never seen,” Johnston avowed.

“We will not allow our tax dollars to fund their radical sexual and political agendas,” she said. “We will not allow our children to be exposed to obscenity in the classroom. We will sue the schools and their administrators for pandering obscenity to minors if they allow our children to be exploited by pornographic, gender-bending sex ed.”

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.