Simi Proposal to Teach Birth Control Debated : Education: Opponents say abstinence alone must be taught. Supporters argue that students need complete information.

Dozens of Simi Valley parents, students and residents took part in an emotional and sometimes heated debate Tuesday over whether to allow schools to teach birth control methods to seventh- and 10th-graders.

More than 70 opponents and supporters of the proposed sex education program testified before the board of the Simi Valley Unified School District, which was scheduled to decide the issue late Tuesday.

The debate over whether to include birth control information in student course work has been at the center of increasing controversy ever since school board member Debbie Sandland first proposed the idea in the spring.

Opponents said abstinence alone should be taught as the only sure way to protect against pregnancy and disease.

“You’ve got to start thinking of the root, not the symptoms,” said Ginny Murray, one of several dozen parents who have spoken out at board meetings since last year.

Supporters of the plan to add birth control information to the sex education curriculum argued that students need to be given complete information to make good choices based on their own values.

Programs that stress only abstinence promote “fear and shame of premarital sex because, bottom line, sex before marriage is viewed as immoral, period,” said Paige Moser, a coordinator for the Simi Valley chapter of the National Organization for Women.

Before Tuesday’s board meeting, about a dozen students held a candlelight vigil outside City Hall to honor those who have died from AIDS and to show their support for the proposed curriculum.

“The wisest person on the Earth couldn’t make a wise decision without all the facts,” Katie Hall, a sophomore at Royal High School who participated in the demonstration, said later in her testimony before the school board.

However, Father John Love, a priest at St. Rose of Lima Church, said educators should not assume that students will become sexually active. Instead, he said abstinence should be raised as the ideal for students to seek.

“Is abstinence possible?” Love said. “I’m 31 years old. I’m celibate. I’ve lived a celibate life all my life and I have not exploded.”

The ideological clash over the district’s sex education curriculum first began when the idea was proposed in April by Sandland. After the board had conducted a routine review of the curriculum, the first-term board member said she found the lack of birth control information disturbing.

A 25-member committee was convened to discuss when and what kind of information students should receive about birth control. However, the diverse committee was not charged with deciding whether to add the information to the courses.

In December, the committee unanimously recommended introducing basic birth control information to the seventh-grade sex education class and expanding the discussion for high school sophomores.

The committee also recommended delving more into how students can develop skills for staying abstinent, such as learning how to resist peer pressure and boost self-esteem.