About
About Pennsylvanians for Responsible Sex Education
Pennsylvanians for Responsible Sex Education is comprised of organizations and individuals dedicated to the instruction of age-appropriate, comprehensive, evidence-based sex education for all Pennsylvania youth. We support sex education that provides instruction on both abstinence and ways to protect against unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in an effort to help teens make healthy decisions if they do decide to have sex. We believe that only through a comprehensive approach to sex education can we lower the incidence of unintended teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted STIs and increase positive health outcomes for teens.
Currently, the prevalence of medically-inaccurate abstinence-only programs, poor teacher training, inadequate standards for sex education and a complete lack of funding for comprehensive factually based sex education in Pennsylvania schools put our teens at risk. Many teenagers in Pennsylvania receive incorrect or incomplete information through abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that fail to offer information on how to prevent unintended pregnancy or STIs beyond instructing teenagers to abstain until marriage. In some schools, even the mistruths of abstinence-only until marriage programs are not taught, but rather sex is not mentioned at all. We believe Pennsylvania teens deserve better.
Pennsylvanians for Responsible Sex Education will work to in crease the prevalence of unbiased, age-appropriate, medically accurate comprehensive sex education while simultaneously working to eliminate the dangerous, medically-inaccurate and ineffective abstinence-only-until-marriage programs in the state We intend to accomplish this by:
- Limiting funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and increasing funding for comprehensive sex education. We will work with the Rendell administration to reject Title V federal funds for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and pursue opportunities to increase funding for comprehensive sex education in the state. We will work with individual school districts to bring awareness to the dangers posed by abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and the positive effects and benefits to teens that a comprehensive approach to sex education will bring.
- Increasing public support for unbiased, medically accurate, age-appropriate sex education. Through public education efforts and research, we plan to inform and educate parents, teens, educators, school administrators, community based organizations, community members, and policy makers about the dangers of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and the importance of a comprehensive, evidence-based, unbiased and medically accurate approach to sex education. It is our goal to demonstrate to the general public and to school and public officials that the majority of Pennsylvanians support a comprehensive approach to sex education, and use that support to spur positive change.
- Supporting educators so that they have the resources to equip teens with the information they need to make healthy decisions about sex. Much of the sex education teens receive depends upon individual teachers and the training and support offered to them. We plan to solicit assistance from educators, parents, school administrators, teacher unions and other organizations so that we may begin working towards a state-wide teacher training program, ultimately providing Pennsylvania teens with consistent and high quality programming across the state.
Co-Chairs
- Joe Fay, M.A.
Executive Director Pennsylvania Coalition to Prevent Teen Pregnancy - Carol Petraitis
Director Clara Bell Duvall Reproductive Freedom Project, ACLU of PA - Sari Stevens
Director Planned Parenthood Advocates of Pennsylvania