The "Healthy Youth Amendment" is standing on a platform of reform - making changes in South Carolina’s sex-education policies that haven't been made in 25 years. Reform can be a great thing, but how can reform be “healthy” if it keeps critical information from our young people? I’m urging our legislators to vote “NO” on H. 3435 – the Healthy Youth Amendment to the Comprehensive Health Education Act (CHEA). If this bill passes, school districts in South Carolina will no longer have the freedom to choose even proven-effective, science-based sex-education programs for their students if those programs are abstinence-based. Schools in South Carolina have the right to maintain positive, healthy, abstinence-focused sex education programs if they so choose! As an advocate for youth, I have spent the last 8 years empowering students in Florida and South Carolina with real, accurate, and effective abstinence-focused sex education. Over the years, I have spoken to thousands of our young people, and have been inspired to watch them step up and make healthy choices for their lives once they were armed with the right information. If this bill passes, it will ban all abstinence-focused sex education programs from our schools, and that is simply unacceptable. Proven effective, science-based programs like the Heritage Keepers program need to be kept available to South Carolina’s students if we are to ever make a real impact on our state’s high teen pregnancy & STI infection rates.

I am particularly concerned about these portions of the bill, and you should be too:

- Information about HPV and Herpes, (two of the most common STDs in the nation, both of which can be transmitted via skin-to-skin contact), will not be taught, which hides fallacies of condom effectiveness and the dangers of “safer sex.” Keeping this information from our students is inexcusable and puts them at unreasonable risk. (p.11)

- Marriage will no longer be taught as the safest boundary for sexual activity, nor will it be promoted as an ideal family structure. (p.8, 9, 15)

- Pregnancy Prevention Education will now teach children as young as 11 about contraception, abortion, “safe sex” and sexual practices independent of reproduction. (p. 10, 11)

- Abstinence Education programs will be illegal in SC schools. (p.7-9, 12,14,15)

- Local control through school boards and Health Advisory Committees will be lost. (p.12-15)

Our students and our schools deserve better than this. South Carolina’s school districts should maintain the freedom to choose the best sex-education programs to meet their individualized needs. And our youth are more than capable of making healthy choices when they are empowered with correct and accurate information; to pass this bill would be a disservice to countless young people in South Carolina. To read a detailed analysis of the bill, click here. Please urge your legislators to vote “NO” on H. 3435!