http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/about/n ... ealact.cfm

NARAL Pro-Choice America Praises Lautenberg-Lee REAL Act


Group endorses effort to ensure young people receive honest, medically accurate and age-appropriate sex education


(Washington, DC) – The president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, the nation’s leading advocate of personal privacy and a woman’s right to choose, praised Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) for introducing legislation that would establish the first-ever federal grant program for comprehensive and accurate sex education.
The Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act would create a grant program administered by the Department of Health and Human Services that would award $206 million per year to states for comprehensive sexuality education. Sen. Lautenberg and Rep. Lee introduced the bill today at a Capitol Hill news conference.

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said Congress should make the legislation a priority since there is no federal comprehensive sex education program, while President Bush seeks to boost funding for unproven abstinence-only initiatives.

"This week we learned that President Bush wants taxpayers to dump an additional $38 million dollars into unproven abstinence-only programs. His request comes despite independent reports that show these programs censor, mislead or misinform young people on critical issues that could endanger their health” Keenan said. “We believe that young people need honest, medically accurate information, and the REAL Act is an important first step to make sure adolescents get the age-appropriate information necessary to prevent unintended pregnancies and halt the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.”

Currently, states can only receive funding if they agree to teach abstinence-only-until-marriage while excluding information about the health benefits of contraception to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Under the REAL Act, states could apply for funding to establish comprehensive and accurate sex education programs.


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i am mighty proud of my home state senator

Finally someone does the smart thing.

Mr. Lautennburg, how much more do we need to dump into an unproven bloated social welfare system?

What's the difference between this and abstinence only sex ed, except that it's the truth?

Did you hurt your knee when it jerked into the bottom of the desk there?

Except the fact that Bush's plan has been in for four years, and social welfare programs have been around for...decades. We just need more money for social welfare. We just need more money for medicair. We just need more money for public schools. It's just a lack of money in these regards. But when it comes to a sex ed program backed by Bush...

I think you missed my point. Bush's sex ed program costs money too, except it ALSO gives false and misleading information. How is it any better than this proposal except that it's BUSH's plan?

Actually Abstinence only ed has been in since the 80's and has been proven quite ineffective. It's time for the truth. Truth shouldn't be harmful should it?

The Republicans want to ban gay marriage, and stop people having sex before marriage. Anyone else see a connection here?

Only married straight people can have sex. What do I win?

I love barbara lee - she was the ONLY rep who voted against invading afghanistan after 9/11 - the only person who didnt give in to mindless nationalism - another reason why California kicks ass

Wrong answer ... it means gay people never, ever get to have sex.

So welfare programs are a useless weight on the economy and the national budget as a whole or did I misread the tone in your post.

If "only" married straight people are having sex, my answer is under the terms you describe.

Alright, incomplete answer ... half credit.

It's great that parents aren't able to teach their kids this, perhaps they aren't familiar with it themselves, to the point where legislation is needed to ensure it.....

So who do you trust more, parents or schools?

I've always trusted porn, and it has yet to steer me wrong.

I don't trust anyone.

It hasn't anything to do with trust anyway, it has to do with responsiblity.

It's fine if the schools wish to provide the information just as they would in a biology or anatomy class sort of way, as long as that is the plan. But it's also pathetic to think that the kids don't have access to the information from their parents or family doctor prior to getting to what I presume to be junior high school or high school age.

It's just another thing on probably a 5 mile long list of things that my tax dollars will be spent upon with no direct benefit to me and will result in most likely some unmeasurable or unqualtifyable benefit to the kids and community long term.

My "health education" in high school consisted of a half of a semester of watching outdated movies about childbirth and anatomy, one class of an old guy explaining sex and the use of a condom (a guy who wasn't a teacher at our school and showed up just for that class, never to be seen again, like it was some dirty secret), and the other half of the semester dedicated to Driver's Education and getting a permit to drive. It was better than nothing I suppose, but not particulary effective. They dropped the driver's ed stuff years ago, I don't know what they did with the health portion of the class.


So, yeah.... ~shrugs~