Please Contact Your State Representative To Oppose House Bill 3027 – 
Vote Can Come In The Fall Veto Session Beginning October 25th, 26th and 27th!

 

HB 3027 as amended by the Senate puts a mandate on all public schools which teach sex education, that there must be teaching about contraception for all children, grades 6-12 or as young as 11 years of age.

A number of curricula recommended by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) not only has condom training and condom races as class exercises, but also requires boys and girls to go to the store together to purchase condoms and talk about how they would use them. This certainly is not appropriate, and the legislation should be clear that this is not intended in the HB 3027 under "...place substantial emphasis on...contraception."   Additionally, many of these curricula promote abortion and/or make light of abortion.  At least one of the curricula states that taking the “morning after pill” or Plan B is not abortion, when in fact the pharmaceutical manufacturer of Plan B specifically says that it can act to prevent implantation of a new human life, which is after conception and that would cause an abortion.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) prioritizes abstinence until "marriage".

Nowhere does the CDC equate condom use or use of contraceptives as being equal in effectiveness to abstinence until marriage. HB 3027 should establish the same priority as the CDC. Policy affects the direction of children's lives when teaching sex education.

HB 3027 does not follow CDC recommendations for local community values.

Many communities in Illinois that have strong Judeo-Christian value systems would have their teachings violated by the requirement that contraception be taught to children. The CDC, in their recommendations, states, "school systems should obtain broad community participation to ensure that school health education policies and programs to prevent the spread of AIDS are locally determined and are consistent with community values."

HB 3027 does not follow the CDC School Health Guidelines

CDC School Health Guidelines, p. 3 states:

"School systems should make programs available that will enable and encourage young people who have not engaged in sexual intercourse and who have not used illicit drugs to continue to

·         Abstain from sexual intercourse until they are ready to establish a mutually monogamous relationship within the context of marriage.

·         Refrain from using or injecting illicit drugs.

For young people who have engaged in sexual intercourse or who have injected illicit drugs, school programs should enable and encourage them to

·         Stop engaging in sexual intercourse until they are ready to establish a mutually monogamous relationship within the context of marriage.

·         To stop using or injecting illicit drugs."

Nowhere do the CDC School Health Guidelines recommend "contraception for the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases among youth" as mentioned in HB 3027. While latex condoms can lower the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, even they cannot prevent all sexually transmitted diseases. No other methods of contraception can even lower the risk of sexually transmitted diseases. HB 3027, while calling for "medically accurate" sex education, fails to be medically accurate!

We believe that the schools of Illinois can best meet these recommendations by the CDC by being allowed to make their own choices about what is most effective.

HB 3027 promotes policies proven to be ineffective in California school programs.

Illinois, for years took funds from the federal government to teach abstinence in our schools. California has taught nothing but comprehensive sex since 1992 in 96% of their schools, during which time Illinois was allowing education teaching abstinence. What is the comparison between the states?

In California, the teen pregnancy rate is 96 teens per thousand, while in Illinois it is 60 teens per thousand. In 2005 there were 1.1 million new cases of sexually transmitted infections among young people. This is ten times higher than previously believed, meaning that in the 15-24 age group, chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, HPV and HIV now infect almost one out of every four young Californians. (Center for Research on Adolescent Health and Development at the Public Health Institute, Oakland, CA)

Illinois is not stepping forward, but backward in the requirement to teach comprehensive sex education in Illinois public schools. Why should Illinois legislators adopt the failed policies of California and call it progress?