As I thought harder about the question, I realized that while the civil rights delineated on our Constitution may not demand comprehensive sexuality education, various international human rights documents and directives do. Like the American Constitution, human rights law applies to state action. Unlike the Constitution, however, human rights law demands that nation states take affirmative steps to ensure that all persons have the means and conditions necessary to enjoy their rights.

Several treaties specifically support adolescents’ right to comprehensive information about sex and sexuality, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The rights enshrined in these documents do not carry binding legal force in U.S. courts because Congress has not ratified them. However, many courts—including the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas—have cited human rights documents and doctrine as persuasive authority.

Even though international human rights law has various applications to the domestic struggle for reproductive justice, most law students—past and present—have to go outside the classroom to learn about them.  Law Students for Reproductive Justice (LSRJ), a national nonprofit organization that supports law students around the country in their efforts to promote reproductive justice, is filling the gaps left by our coursework.   With resources like the new Human Rights Law Primer and Human Rights on the Home Front Easy Event in an Envelope, LSRJ provides the next generation of legal experts with the information and skills we will need to make reproductive rights a reality for all people.  With these tools, aspiring legal scholars and advocates like me can enter practice ready to articulate well-reasoned arguments that demand access to a full range of reproductive health services and induce government action to effectuate those rights. (more…)

In her feature on the supposed generational divide in the pro-choice movement, which ran in Sunday’s New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg correctly observes that abortion has hit the headlines recently in the context of health care reform and the horrendously restrictive Stupak amendment—and it’s not something reproductive rights advocates are happy about.  But there isn’t much else I can relate to in her assessment of the current landscape in reproductive rights advocacy and activism.  In fact, I think the story—which argues that there is a chasm between the “menopausal militia,” meaning the generation of feminists who came of age before Roe v. Wade and view abortion in “stark political terms,” and the “millennials,” the younger set for whom Stolberg suggests abortion is a personal issue—misses the mark in a sad but revealing way.

Relying on quotes from Naral Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan, Stolberg promotes this political/personal dichotomy without actually explaining how this supposed shift to the personal manifests itself—other than the fact that the post-Roe generations seem less responsive to single-issue pro-choice calls to action.  Provocative accompanying artwork, which consists of a black rectangle with brightly colored letters spelling “WE” floating above “ME,” implies that younger women are selfish in neglecting abortion politics.  Yet Stolberg acknowledges that “a clear majority of Americans support the right to abortion, and there’s little evidence of a difference between those over 30 and under 30.”  In fact, she herself points to several examples of young people organizing right now to stop the Stupak amendment (including LSRJ’s recent webinar on abortion and health care reform legislation).  So what’s the issue?

Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg concludes that young people don’t respond to email alerts about contacting their legislators because they know abortion is legal and believe “if you really need one you can probably figure out how to get one.”  Which means not only are we selfish, but we’re also foolishly complacent.  But what about the millions of poor women, immigrant women, and young women who can’t ever “figure out how to get one” because the barriers we’ve erected to accessing legal abortion are simply too high?  Such women may be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term or to induce an abortion through other means, with serious consequences for the health and security of themselves and their families.  And what about those of us who aren’t poor, immigrant, or under 18 but believe deeply that how our society treats those women reflects on all of us, individually and collectively? (more…)

Drug policy has benefited from the harm reduction movement’s innovative approach to improving personal safety.  The application of a harm reduction model to reproductive justice has the potential to transform the way we view reproductive justice issues and mobilize support for issues that are traditionally marginalized within the movement.  I want to consider what we can learn from the harm reduction movement in advocating for sex workers’ rights and comprehensive sex education.

Harm reduction is a public health philosophy that emphasizes individual safety, regardless of lifestyle choices, over prohibition.  This approach acknowledges that some individuals may continue to engage in risky behaviors and aims to address the needs created by those behaviors.  The harm reduction movement spearheaded efforts to improve safety and provide services to substance abusers, such as safer injection sites for heroin addicts—the theory being that if addicts were going to use, at least providing them with clean needles would benefit the addicts themselves as well as the overall public health.  Because harm reduction focuses on social and environmental aspects of risky behavior, its application to sex work is intuitive.  

Sex workers face violations of basic human rights on a daily basis, including violence at the hands of clients as well as police brutality.  Additionally, many sex workers must cope with homelessness, substance dependency, and extreme poverty and desperation.  Because street-based sex workers are predominantly indigent women of color, selective law enforcement practices disproportionately target poor, minority women.

Sex workers are isolated from health care services because of fear of arrest and prosecution, as well as the increasingly inaccessible cost of such care.  Street-based sex workers in particular face health risks that the average worker does not, such as violence (perpetrated by police and clients), exposure to sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS, and exposure to the elements.  When sex workers do access health care services, it is generally because of an emergency; thus, lack of access to preventative services is a serious health concern for sex workers.

In the context of providing services and outreach to sex workers, then, an application of the harm reduction model must take into account how various and overlapping forms of oppression create unique challenges for sex workers:  namely, substance abuse problems and lack of resources to access health care.  Services should include the provision of safer sex kits to sex workers and training in condom-negotiation skills, as well as free and confidential STD testing and information about HIV/AIDS.  Holistic services should also embrace substance abuse counseling and clean needles for drug use and hormone injections for transgendered sex workers who utilize hormone therapy.  Programs that collaborate across disciplines would address sex workers’ needs the most effectively by tackling substance abuse, safe housing, domestic violence, and health care.

So, why is this an issue of reproductive justice? First, this approach recognizes that sex workers are often in the industry for reasons beyond their control, such as economic hardship or inability to enter or reenter the workforce due to lack of recognized work experience or a criminal record.  In this respect, this acknowledgement of the multiplicities of oppression reflects the values of the reproductive justice movement—harm reduction recognizes that the decision to enter or remain in the sex industry can be (but is not always) a result of economic, racial, and gender injustice.  Accordingly, rather than criminalize, patronize or demonize sex workers, harm reduction seeks to provide safer options for those who choose to continue in the sex industry.  And, because a harm reduction approach ascribes no moral judgment to the activities of others, the traditional hierarchy assumed by service provision is disrupted.  Significantly, this challenges the notion that those in positions of power “know best” while empowering sex workers to make the healthiest choice possible for themselves under their individual circumstances.  This approach also empowers sex workers to use contraceptives and educate themselves on sexual health issues.  Importantly, then, application of the harm reduction model does not demean the work that sex workers do because it both identifies the intersection of race, class, and gender-based oppression that often create the need to continue working in the sex industry and recognizes that some sex workers remain in the industry by choice.

I already blogged about abstinence-only education, but I think it’s important to consider sex ed in light of harm reduction as well.  The philosophies which underlie harm reduction call for the elimination of funding for abstinence-only education in schools and implementation of comprehensive, sex-positive sex ed.  Abstinence-only education does not actually result in teens abstaining from sex, and instead denies them critical information about sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy prevention, and, yes—sexuality itself. 

Harm reduction acknowledges that people—and, in this case, young people—make choices that may put their health or well-being at risk, and seeks to provide information to most safely make those choices rather than administer judgment or condescension.  Like the earliest manifestations of the harm reduction movement—safer injection sites combined with resources and support for substance abusers who were trying to stop using drugs—comprehensive sex education presents young people with information and options.  And, like its predecessors in the movement, this information is health- and life-saving.  For teens who are having sex or are going to have sex, comprehensive sex education equips them with the tools and information they need to make that decision in a way that protects them from diseases and unwanted pregnancies as well as providing them with a healthy outlook on sexuality. 

Reproductive justice posits that all people have a right to information required to attain sexual and reproductive self-determination.  Providing students with comprehensive sex education reflects the principles that motivate the harm reduction movement, and as such gives students the tools they need to make healthy decisions about their bodies, their relationships, and their futures.

-Amanda Allen

Today, we have a special guest blog post from Sheena Bosket, co-coordinator of LSRJ’s chapter at Georgia State University.

Last night, I watched 2 episodes of the MTV show “Sex…with Mom and Dad.” The show attempts to facilitate a dialogue with teenagers and their parents about sex, where both parties can air their grievances, concerns, etc. with the help of board-certified sex and relationship therapist Dr. Drew. Both episodes that I watched dealt with teenagers who had been with a number of sexual partners and parents/siblings that were concerned about them. However, in the first episode, the teenager was female and in the second episode, the teenager was male. I was struck, though not surprised, by the contrast in treatment of the two teenagers by Dr. Drew and by the voiceovers used to describe them. In the voiceovers in the episode featuring the female teenager, she was repeatedly referred to as “promiscuous” and was said to “sleep around.” In the voiceovers for the male teenager, he was referred to as a “player” and a “male whore,” a phrase that is offensive to women because by using the qualifier “male,” the suggestion is made that usually a “whore” is female.

As the episodes progress, Dr. Drew uses exercises to open up the dialogue between the teenagers and their parents. The first exercise is called “The Icebreaker,” which is meant to encourage both the teenager and her/his parents to share parts of their sexual past and openly communicate with each other. The second exercise is called “The Breakthrough” and is meant to show the teenager the potential consequences of his/her actions. After each exercise, the parents and teenager meet with Dr. Drew to discuss how the exercise affected them. In the episode featuring the female teenager, even before he assigned the first exercise, Dr. Drew took a noticeably paternalistic approach to discussing her sexual history with her by suggesting that her number of sexual partners was most likely a sign of internal turmoil, which may have been true, but does not necessarily have to be the case. When the teenager was hesitant to reveal to Dr. Drew how many sexual partners she had been with, Dr. Drew asked her if she was afraid that people were going to judge her if she revealed her number. When the teenager responded affirmatively, Dr. Drew told her that her fear suggests that she feels guilty about how many people she’s been with. I don’t think this is necessarily true. I think her fear shows that she is aware of the society she lives in. The fact of the matter is if you are a teenage girl in America and it’s decided that you’ve been with more than your fair share of sexual partners, people are going to judge you. That’s just true. Accept it Dr. Drew. Also, she may have been hesitant to reveal her sexual past because she knows that her peers watch this show and she didn’t want to be called names at school; a justifiable fear that should have been acknowledged by Dr. Drew. He also asked her how many sexual partners she planned on having in her life and told her that he was concerned about “the numbers,” a concern that was noticeably absent from his discussion with the male teenager who, interestingly enough, had had more sexual partners than the female teenager.

In the female teenager’s episode, her “Breakthrough” exercise was designed to show her the “weight of her choices.” She, her mother, and her sister all participated in the exercise, which involved all of them going on a nature walk together. Along the way, each person had to pick up a rock for each sexual partner they had been with and put it in a bucket that they carried with them for the duration of the walk. The teenager had the most sexual partners of the three and therefore, she had the heaviest bucket and the most to consider. I do not feel positively about this exercise because I feel the subtext of it was that the teenager should feel guilty about the number of sexual partners she’s had or that she should be punished for having as many partners as she’s had. If Dr. Drew was really concerned about this teenager understanding the consequences of her actions, a much better exercise would have been for each rock to have the name of a possible STI she could have gotten written on it along with a rock that had “pregnancy” written on it, as this is another consequence of her choices.

Now, I haven’t said all of this just to vent. Well, maybe some of it. I’ve said it to point out that this television show, which was meant to facilitate sexual dialogue between the teenagers who watch it and their parents as well, may also have a very substantial negative effect: instead of encouraging young women to talk to their parents about what’s going on in their lives, it may convince them to keep their sex lives to themselves and be ashamed of them as a result of the sexist treatment of young women on the show. By choosing to create a television show like this, MTV has also created for itself extra responsibility. We live in a society where some young people are still being “educated” about sex solely through “abstinence-only” programs. Many of these programs give young people erroneous information and if they feel that they can’t turn to their parents to discuss this information and possibly have it corrected, what these teenagers don’t know can hurt them. Some teenagers may only receive correct information about STIs, testing, pregnancy, etc. from a show like “Sex…with Mom and Dad,” but if this information is presented via a sexist framework, it can still be harmful. If MTV wants to appropriately address the issues that the young people face who have made the network so successful, this needs to change.

-Sheena Bosket, Co-Coordinator, LSRJ at Georgia State University

Today marks the 36^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and for the fourth time bloggers all over the nation are participating in Blog for Choice.  We have been asked to answer the following question: What is your top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress?

After eight years of Bush, it was a difficult task to choose just one thing.  I decided that my top pro-choice hope for President Obama, and the new Congress, is for the elimination of federal funding for abstinence-only education.  We have to start using our tax dollars to provide comprehensive sexuality education that teaches prevention and tolerance—and that does not rely on sexist attitudes about boys and girls, marginalize gay youth, or insist on using ideology to educate.  The new Congress should pass the Prevention First Act, and President Obama should eliminate funding for abstinence-only education programs in the federal budget and instead resolve to only approve funding for comprehensive sex ed programs.

$176 million a year is spent on abstinence-only education.  In order to receive federal funding, state grantees’ sex ed curriculum must adhere to a strict eight-point definition of abstinence-only education.  For example, abstinence-only education must teach “that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity” and that “sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.”  Abstinence-only programs may only mention contraceptives in terms of failure rates.

Abstinence-only education has been rightfully criticized for containing medically inaccurate information, its reliance on sexist stereotypes, and for failing to require educating teens about sexual assault.  Back in 2004, a study was commissioned by Rep. Harry Waxman on the content of federally funded abstinence-only education programs.  The study found that 80% of commonly used sex ed curricula contains false, misleading, or inaccurate information about sex and reproductive health.  Curricula commonly stated factually inaccurate information about the risks of abortion and consistently relied on sexist stereotypes, presumably in an effort to teach kids that girls and boys deal with sex differently.  For example, the Waxman study found that one curriculum listed “financial support” as one of women’s “5 Major Needs” and “domestic support” as one of men’s “5 Major Needs.”  Several curricula continue to refer to a now-discredited study that erroneously found that condoms fail to prevent HIV 31% of the time.

More recently, a 2008 study found that abstinence-only education is particularly harmful to girls by undermining social ideals of gender equality and by denying life-saving information about reproductive health to girls, who are particularly vulnerable to the consequences of unprotected sex (with respect to both STIs and unplanned pregnancies).   And, a 2009 report on virginity pledges—many of which are included in abstinence-only curricula—concluded that the sexual behavior of teens who took a virginity pledge did not differ from that of non-pledgers, but that pledgers were less likely to use protection when they did have sex.   (This is worse than what the same researchers found in 2001, which was that virginity pledgers did actually delay the first time they had sex compared to non-pledgers, but were less likely to use birth control when they did.)  Basically, virginity pledges don’t work—and teens who take them don’t have the information they need to protect themselves when they do have sex.

So, why are we still funding programs that portray girls as helpless gatekeepers and boys as uncontrollable bundles of hormones?  Both depictions are unfair, stripping both teen girls and boys of their sexual agency.  Why are we funding programs that place a problematic emphasis on the socially constructed concept of “virginity” rather than giving students the information and tools they need to make healthy choices? And what is the point of teaching kids that men need “domestic support”? Of course, the answer is ideology.  But it is a commitment to a radical ideology that prioritizes misinformation, scare tactics, sexism, and homophobia over science at the expense of teens’—and disproportionately teen girls’—health, safety, and self-determination. 

So, that is my number-one hope for the Obama administration and the new Congress.  Congress should pass the Prevention First Act, reintroduced on January 13, 2009, which aims to reduce unintended pregnancies, including by ensuring that all federal programs provide medically accurate information.  I hope that President Obama does not ask for any funding in his budget request to Congress for abstinence-only education.  I have high hopes that we will move into a new era where sex ed is science-based and, yes, sex-positive; where sex ed doesn’t teach kids that girls are responsible for denying boys’ sexual advances or tell bald-faced lies about contraception.  We need to as a society explore what it means for kids to have a right to information—and adjust sex ed curriculum accordingly. 

-Amanda Allen

Here’s a not so hypothetical hypo (yes, I’m studying for exams, so I am awash in hypos): an LSRJ chapter plans an event called “Sex Toys 101″ in which they plan to bring in an educator from a local shop to teach students about sexual health and pleasure and to facilitate a discussion about state laws around the country concerning the legality of sex toys. Two hours before the event, the school’s assistant dean cancels it, citing some school regulation that bans the selling or promotion of commercial products by a private company. Except that no one was promoting or selling anything — anything, that is, other than a sex-positive attitude. The student group yells censorship. The dean says it’s just a simple case of misapplication of school rules.

Sound far-fetched? Think again. This is going on right now at the University of Wisconsin. And the school’s LSRJ chapter is in the thick of it. The chain of events might make more sense in, say, Alabama or Texas — states with a recent history of outlawing sex toys — but in Wisconsin? So it is.

Luckily, it appears as if the law school community is seeing through the dean’s flimsy reasoning. From the blog of one professor: “That sure sounds reasonable, and it might be if it wasn’t bulls**t!”

And so it appears. The person who came to speak at the event provided the education as a public service. Experts from Babeland have done the same thing at NYU without incident. They don’t bring anything to sell or push students to patronize the store. Instead, they come to promote safe and healthy sexuality. Shouldn’t a graduate school with a student body made up wholly of adults want its students to have access to all the information necessary to make informed, empowered, and healthy sexual choices? Wouldn’t a law school want to nurture the ideals of the First Amendment?

Wisconsin LSRJ thinks so, and the group is organizing students on campus to protest the dean’s actions. The major league blogs have picked up. And the pressure is mounting. But I guess this is the fight we a society can expect when we allow the government to fund abstinence-only “education” programs, which plant the seed of our dysfunctional thinking about sexuality.

The first-ever national study of four common sexually transmitted diseases (or STDs) (HPV, Chlamydia, Genital Herpes, and Trichomoniasis) among girls and women was released yesterday. And the results were eye-opening: at least one-in-four girls are infected with one of the four diseases surveyed. Among Black girls between the ages of 14-19, the percentage shoots up to about half.

According to the NY Times, the Centers for Disease Control reacted by calling “for strengthen[ed] screening, vaccination and other prevention measures for the diseases, which are among the highest public health priorities.”

Yes, that’s right. But let’s not beat around the bush here. We don’t just need “prevention measures,” if prevention measures means more abstinence-only “education”. We need comprehensive sex education so that teens–who, let’s face it, are likely to be sexually active at some point before marriage–know how to prevent the transmission of STDs and learn how to protect themselves. C

ecile Richards, Planned Parenthood’s current leader, put it well: “The national policy of promoting abstinence-only programs is a $1.5 billion failure,” Ms. Richards said, “and teenage girls are paying the real price.”

Yes, it is girls and women who are paying the price. And it’s not the price for having sex or for attending comprehensive sex ed, if they were lucky enough to have it, as some on the anti-sex, anti-woman, anti-abortion bandwagon would have us believe. It’s the price for living in a country (or rather, under a regime) that does not respect women’s sexuality.

The Wall Street Journal can argue all it wants that these numbers are not alarming once we dig a little deeper, and that the prevalence of HPV in young women shouldn’t get us too worked up. But it does. And it should. It should get us worked up enough to push our states to reject abstinence only funding (if they haven’t already) and to institute real, comprehensive sex education.

The other day, Iowa became the 17th state to reject federal abstinence-only dollars. The state will continue to refuse funding until and unless the federal government makes significant changes to the program. The other 16 states include New York, Ohio, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Montana and Connecticut, among others. New York had previously received the second largest amount of any state of federal abstinence only dollars.

As it currently stands, recipients of federal Title V abstinence-only funding are required to adhere to strict guidelines. The program requires states receiving the funding to adhere to the following requirements:

In case it’s not apparent, there are significant problems with this definition. As SIECUS explains, “This definition ensures that young people who have already engaged in sexual activity, those have been sexually abused, or those living in nontraditional households are not only denied critical health information but are presented with shame- and fear-based messages. Other groups of young people, such as gay and lesbian youth, are ignored completely.”

Yup. And the rejection of these ideas was really needed in Iowa, where some of the federal (and state matching) funding had been used to pay for a huge roadside billboard featuring a picture of a pregnant woman who was not wearing a wedding ring. The billboard read: “Wait for the bling.”

Certainly there’s nothing wrong with encouraging teens to wait to have sex until they are ready. But using federal dollars to pay for misogynist, patriarchal, patronizing ads like this one goes way beyond simply encouraging kids to wait until they are ready. Especially ironic is that, while abstinence only programs encourage waiting until marriage (for just about everything), they don’t provide people with the education necessary to prevent pregnancy should they decide to become sexually active. Abstinence-only programs are not just anti-woman, anti-gay, and anti-abortion. They’re also anti-sexuality, full stop. They suggest that sexuality is a failing. But what’s failing are these programs, which have not been proven to reduce rates of teenage sex. And they’re far out of step with public opinion, which heavily supports comprehensive sex ed (which includes abstinence).

Given the weight of public opinion, and the fact that more than 1/3 of states have now rejected the federal funding, I’ve got to wonder at what point the scales will tip. The Democratic congress has not yet had the political will to reduce or end Title V and the other abstinence-only funding streams. But the point at which Congress will have no choice but to do so — the tipping point to borrow from Gladwell – now seems closer than ever.

Given that abstinence-only programs have been proven time-and-again to be ineffective, it’s no surprise to see pressure mounting to defund them. RH Reality Check today posted a letter, signed by ten prominent researchers in the area of teen reproductive and sexual health, and sent last week to Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid. In the letter, the experts call on Congress’s Democratic leaders to make good on their promise to change things in D.C. by stopping the stream of millions of dollars each year that flow to abstinence-only programs (and to Crisis Pregnancy Centers). They wrote:

As a group of leading scientists who have recently conducted research on adolescents, reproductive health, and abstinence-only education, we are writing to express our strong concern about increasing federal support for abstinence-only education (AOE) programs.

***

The federal programs promoting AOE have prompted multiple scientific and ethical critiques. These critiques were summarized in a January 2006 paper by Santelli, Ott and others. By design, abstinence programs restrict information about condoms and contraception - information that may be critical to protecting the health of young people and to preventing unplanned pregnancy, HIV infection, and infection with other sexually transmitted organisms. They ignore the health needs of sexually active youth and youth who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning for counseling, health care services, and risk reduction education. Withholding lifesaving information from young people is contrary to the standards of medical ethics and to many international human rights conventions. International treaties and human rights statements support the rights of adolescents to seek and receive information vital to their health. Governments have an obligation to provide accurate information to adolescents and adolescents have a right to expect health education provided in public schools to be scientifically accurate and complete.

It goes on. And on. There’s just so much that’s wrong with abstinence only programs. I, for one, hoped the Democrats would own up to that and make getting rid of — or at least minimizing funding for — misogynistic, hetero-centric abstinence only programs a priority. But, as Amanda Marcotte points out, the Dems are in a bind:

Right now Democrats are in a political bind, because abstinence-only proponents are super eager to label anyone who advocates for effective programs (i.e., comprehensive sex education) as advocates for teenagers f–king in the streets.

So, in Lakoff-ian fashion, Amanda calls for a reframing:

What needs to happen is basic reframing. This isn’t about who wants who to have sex with who when, but about who wants kids to be healthy, and who is resigned to letting them get sick. Which is all you’re going to get with abstinence-only. But it’s more than just what “works” better in terms of reducing STDs and pregnancy rates (though comprehensive sex education does), but it’s a philosophical question, too. The very idea that schools should be in the business of reinforcing ignorance instead of improving knowledge is a violation of basic American ideals.

I think Amanda’s right that a reframing would help make real, comprehensive sex-ed more palatable (shocking that providing kids with accurate sex information is not enough).  What strikes me, though, is how often we on the progressive side of this issue find ourselves in this bind. We need to reframe on abortion. We need to reframe on sex-ed. We need to reframe on women and work. I’m left scratching my head a little about why it is that we are so bad at framing in the first place.

It’s now well established that abstinence only “education” programs don’t work. They don’t prevent or delay sex among teens. They don’t help teens prevent STDs or unintended pregnancy. And they’re misogynist and homophobic (take, for example, the program called “Sex is for Fags,” an abstinence program for boys. Ok, that one’s a joke but it’s not far from the truth). While there were hopes when the Democrats came to power in 2006 that abstinence only funding would wane, the Dems are now dithering.

Luckily, Amanda Marcotte, in her new gig at RH Reality Check, reminds us today why abstinence only programs undermine reproductive justice and hurt men’s and women’s sexual health. She reminds us about the real lessons of abstinence only “education.” They include:

•  implicitly encouraging “anything but” sex, yet without the proper education on disease prevention
• that the third of American women who have had abortions are degenerates and failures
• People — but really, women — can “use up” all of their capability to connect emotionally if they have sex before marriage, thus making happy relationships later in life impossible.
• All those stereotypes you’ve heard about what women and men want and need in relationships are true.

The research of SIECUS and Advocates for Youth back this up. At NYU last year, we hosted an event complete with mock Ab-Only class (run by SIECUS’s Maxwell Ciardullo). People — even those in the know about reproductive justice — were shocked at what kids are learning in school.  We should all be in the know, so we can fight against the continued funding of these destructive programs.