Lawmaker aims at setting standards for sex-ed classes

OLYMPIA — A bill before the Legislature would require public schools to teach both abstinence and contraception in sex-education classes.

The perennial push to revamp sexual-health courses — which range from abstinence-only lectures to contraceptive how-to's — would broaden the focus of some courses and set new standards for what is taught.

Rep. Shay Schual-Berke, prime sponsor of House Bill 1297, said some health classes provide inaccurate information — for example, that premarital sex can cause infertility or that condoms never work.

Those messages leave teens unprepared because they don't address the effectiveness of condoms or explain the real risks of sexual activity, said Schual-Berke, D-Normandy Park.

"We are subjecting too many of our students to misinformation," she said.

School districts aren't required to teach sex education. But under Schual-Berke's bill, those that do would have to provide medically accurate, age-appropriate and thorough information. That means teaching both abstinence and contraception or nothing at all.

Abstinence-only advocates say that telling kids not to have sex while showing them how to use contraceptives is confusing.

It sends mixed messages by saying, "here are the condoms" and "here is how to do it," said Kayla Fisher, 18, of the Vancouver, Wash., abstinence organization AWARE.

She and other teens packed a House committee hearing for the Healthy Youth Act last week. It also drew advocates from the medical field and parents from both sides of the issue.

Ty Carleton, a high-school junior from Olympia, said teens who aren't taught sex education at school turn to friends, a sometimes unreliable source.

"My peers rely on me," said Carleton, whose mother, Jodi Bernstein, is a sexuality educator.

Bernstein said teachers need to be open about contraceptives because many teens are too embarrassed to talk to parents about sex.

Abstinence educator Lisa Merrifield said most schools already offer comprehensive sex education but that continuing teen pregnancy just proves kids should be told not to, rather than how to, have sex.

Under existing law and the new legislation, parents can excuse their children from human-sexuality classes.

The success of abstinence-only education is widely debated.

A Columbia University study said teaching only abstinence to adolescents "is scientifically and ethically problematic" because students who are sexually active do not learn how to protect themselves. The findings were published in the Journal of Adolescent Health last year.

The state Department of Health backs the bill, which is based on guidelines the department issued with the Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2005.

The guidelines also call for lessons about communication, anatomy, self-esteem, relationships, values, peer and media pressures, and where to turn for pregnancy and disease testing.

Should the bill pass, sexual-health classes would be updated to fit the guidelines by next school year.

Elliott Wilson: 360-236-8169 or ewilson@seattletimes.com