FPA in the News: 2006
The Legislative Gazette
“Lawmakers, FPA Call for Universal Sex Ed. In Schools”
By Sasha Austrie
1.30.06
The Family Planning Advocates of New York State used its annual lobby day last Tuesday to demand that the Legislature pass the Healthy Teens Act.
The bill (S.5121-B) would create a grant program to support school-based health centers, boards of cooperative educational services and community organizations to develop and carry out programs that provide New York’s students with sex education through the State Department of Health. The program is aimed at preventing unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.
According to Jonathan Burman, spokesman for the State Education Department, New York State does not currently require schools to teach sex education.
“Schools must, however, provide instruction in health education, including information about AIDS and HIV,” Burman said.
Members of the Family Planning Advocates, students from New York City, Long Island and Upstate New York and four members of the state Legislature called for support of the bill during a press conference.
In attendance were the lead sponsors: Assemblyman Richard N. Gotfried, D, WF-Manhattan and Sen. Nicholas A. Spano, R, CI-Yonkers, as well as assemblywomen Naomi Rivera, D-Bronx and Aileen M. Gunther, D, WF-Forestburgh.
According to JoAnn M. Smith, president and CEO of the FPA, New York deserves a rating of zero for its current sex education programs.
“We would like to believe that we do it better in New York. We are smarter in New York,” said Smith. “But in this [case], New York is doing it wrong.”
According to the education department’s regulations on health education, grades K-12, “shall provide appropriate instruction concerning AIDS as part of the sequential health education program.” The regulations would allow students to be instructed on the transmission, and prevention of AIDS. It also stated, “stress abstinence as the most appropriate and effective premarital protection against AIDS, and shall be age appropriate and consistent with community values.”
The state is the third largest spender behind Texas and Florida on abstinence-only programs but has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy.
Smith said there is no statewide commitment to “real sex education.” She cited a position paper by the “Journal of Adolescent Health”, which stated “federal support of abstinence-only programs has grown rapidly since 1996, the evaluations of these programs find little evidence of efficacy in delaying initiation of sexual intercourse.”
“There is $13 million allocated for abstinence-only programs,” said Catherine Abate, board chair of the FPA. “That is a $1 million increase over last year.”
Spano, the only Republican senator to support the bill, said, “We have to be both practical and realistic. We need to give kids all the information that is out there.”
Spano used his family as an example for the need for sex education programs. As the oldest of 16, and the uncle to 33 nieces and nephews, Spano said, “Some of the discussions they [nieces] have in the back seat of my truck is scary. I need some help in getting additional support for this bill.”
Shaquana Gardner, a teen advocate and student at the High School of Environmental Studies in New York City, said she is a firm supporter of the act. She said that students go to school to get an education, which will enable them to have choices. According to Gardner, the current programs do not allow choices.
“No education means no options, which means no choices,” Gardner said.