Plan to Alter Rules on Sex Education Stirs Furor

It seemed like such a simple approach to sex education: Tell the truth, the whole truth.

But Assemblyman Jim Cunneen (R-San Jose) has learned the hard way that in the emotional debate over what teenagers should be taught about sex and by whom, that was the equivalent of throwing down the gauntlet.

As the moderate Republican’s AB 246 heads for the Assembly floor this week--perhaps as early as today--his office is awash in calls and letters from conservative groups that view the bill as a direct attack on abstinence-only instruction.

In this state, school districts may choose whether to offer sex education--about 87% do--and the state Education Code requires only that abstinence be emphasized. Thanks to legislation passed last year, parents can hold their children out of sex education.

Cunneen’s bill would add the requirement that all information presented be medically accurate.

What would be wiped out are tactics in some abstinence-only curricula intended to scare teenagers into abstinence. One such lesson suggests that people may be able to get AIDS from tears, another that condoms fail to prevent nearly a third of HIV infections.

The fact that the bill was the brainchild of Planned Parenthood fuels conservatives’ furor.

Under the headline: “NEW BILL ATTACKS ABSTINENCE,” the Capitol Resource Institute urged people to act.

“The result would be that abstinence education would be labeled inaccurate and banned from public schools statewide,” the Sacramento-based, Christian-oriented group’s February newsletter reported.

And the California Right to Life Education Fund further alleged, in a letter to Cunneen, that Planned Parenthood has financial motivations because, they said, teenage contraceptive use is on the decline.

Planned Parenthood officials report that the allegation is wrong, saying teenage pregnancy is down because contraceptive use is up. “If Planned Parenthood has any kind of incentive in doing this it’s because our whole mission is about prevention,” said Nancy Sasaki, president of the Los Angeles chapter.

Cunneen says he favors abstinence but is pushing for accurate success and failure rates of the full spectrum of contraceptive methods to be covered.

“It’s a truthful health statement that abstinence is the only 100% effective method to prevent pregnancy,” he said. “Conservatives should consider this [bill] an improvement.”

The dispute is largely about who would determine what is medically accurate. Supporters say the bill promotes reliance on factual information published in peer review journals and “recognized by leading organizations and agencies . . . such as the federal Centers for Disease Control.”

Opponents say that without further clarification liberals could easily end up controlling the decisions and that groups like Planned Parenthood could use the measure as grounds for lawsuits.

“There’s too much room for politics, even in leading organizations,” said Natalie Williams, the Capitol Resource Institute’s education policy director.

In 1997, a critical report by two liberal policy organizations about one of the most extreme abstinence programs--Sex Respect--caused many school districts to stop using it. However, proponents of Cunneen’s bill say similar approaches are still common. One national group estimates that there are at least 11 fear-based programs now in use across the country.

No reliable rundown of which California districts might use those materials is available because the state Education Department provides only guidelines for sex education and not active oversight of its presentation. The department was criticized for including Sex Respect in its Healthy Kids Resource Center library--a lending institution for districts--though it has since deleted it.

Such single-dimensional instruction would always have been considered “supplemental” to a more diverse sex education class, said Caroline Roberts of the department’s School Health Connections division.

However, she said the resource center operates much like a public library, more concerned with providing a diversity of offerings than with censorship. The center’s Web site, for example, offers a videotaped interview with Magic Johnson about AIDS, which can be borrowed with or without “a discussion of the importance of condom use.”

A bill by Assemblyman Mike Honda (D-San Jose) that was nearly identical to Cunneen’s passed the Legislature last year, but Republican Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed it.

Democrat Gray Davis has not taken a stand on the new bill but said in last year’s campaign that he supported sex education that covered the full spectrum of issues.