The Legislature is on the verge of passing a bill that would require school districts with human growth and development classes to teach sexual abstinence until marriage as the preferred behavior. [. . .]I do not teach health and, frankly, am kind of glad not to have to have that kind of talk with any of my students. But to suggest that teenagers don't know about abstinence is ridiculous. They know that not doin' it means you don't get pregnant, and they understand that not doin' it is an option for them. The idea that somehow teaching them about condoms crowds all that they ever heard about abstinence out of their brains so that they forget to be not doin' it is just silly.
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), said Wisconsin teens don't get the abstinence message in classrooms enough, because of a focus on using condoms and birth control instead. "Abstinence isn't taught out there, or isn't emphasized," Lazich told the Assembly Education Committee. "Abstinence should be taught to students unapologetically," when a school district decides to teach students about growth and development, Lazich said.
This is not about making teenagers safe and healthy. This is about control of sex. This is about control of local school boards. This is about putting another awful bill on Jim Doyle's desk that he will veto, so that Republicans can distort it into a campaign issue for 2006. (Given new poll numbers, Republicans will need all the trumped-up issues they can buy, it seems.)
(Link fixed)
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