On Tuesday, a New York City mandate was announced requiring that public school students take one semester of sex education classes during 6th or 7th grade and then an additional semester during either 9th or tenth grade. The sex-education curriculum would emphasize abstinence as the most effective way of preventing sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and pregnancy but also includes information about contraception and condom use. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York responded by calling the mandate “troubling” and encouraged parents to opt their children out of sex-education classes.
This is the first time in nearly 20 years that students enrolled in New York City public schools will be required to take sex-education classes. According to the New York Times, between 2006 and 2008, twenty-five percent of teenagers received abstinence-only education that did not include information about contraception.
Comprehensive family planning services, like those funded by Title X, are not only based in medically accurate information but are proven to prevent unintended pregnancies and limit the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), while they save taxpayers’ money.
