Federal Issues - REAL Sex Education

REAL Sex Education

Planned Parenthood is working with state and federal governments to ensure access to real sex education programs that give young people the tools to make responsible decisions and stay healthy.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than three million teen girls have a sexually transmitted infection (STI). That's at least one in four.  Even worse, some 750,000 teenagers in the United States will become pregnant this year. The national policy of promoting abstinence-only programs is a $1.5 billion failure, and our young people are paying the real price.

The best way to help teens prevent unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections is to provide them with comprehensive, medically accurate, age-appropriate information. The vast majority of Americans — including parents — support comprehensive sex education. But only about five percent of American students receive sex education that covers all the information they need.

Good News!

President Obama’s 2010 budget ends funding for ineffective abstinence-only programs and provides $178 million for evidence-based comprehensive sex education programs that prevent teen pregnancy.

Failed abstinence-only programs have cost our government more than $1 billion dollars. President Obama’s budget makes clear that the government won’t waste federal dollars on programs that don’t reduce the number of teen pregnancies or keep teens healthy and safe. Instead, the Obama administration is investing in evidence-based sex ed programs that have proven to help prevent teen pregnancy.

Sex Education in PA

To find out more about sex education in PA, visit our issues page HERE.

What You Can Do:

Join us for a monthly phone bank in your neighborhood, or spend an afternoon going door to door with one of our summer interns!  Send us an email at administration@pppamail.org to find out more.