The House Education Committee voted 9-4 on Thursday in favor of a bill that would require sex education classes in Colorado to be science-based. House Bill 1292 next goes before the full House of Representatives.

Sponsored by Rep. Nancy Todd (D-Aurora), HB 1292 would require public schools that offer sex education to include up-to-date information about HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, and the link between the STD human papillomavirus and cervical cancer. It calls for schools to emphasize abstinence, including from oral sex, and it says districts should involve parents in curriculum planning.

Rep. Tom Massey (R-Poncha Springs) was the only Republican on the committee to support the bill. He said that all children should ideally receive adequate sexual health information from their parents but that is often not the case. "It's regretful that we put this on our school districts sometimes to be the purveyors of information like this," said Massey, who has teenage sons.

Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) worried the bill could render school districts ineligible for federal abstinence funds. State organizations, including one school district, receive almost $500,000 a year for abstinence-only programs. Abstinence promoters like the Colorado Catholic Conference said the bill could limit those funds and would strip local districts of curriculum options.

But Rep. Michael Merrifield (D-Colorado Springs), the committee's chairperson, said the federal funds force states into providing kids with "misinformation and incomplete information" about sex. It is naïve to assume that all teens are abstaining from sex, and "to hide information from them because of it makes us uncomfortable is irresponsible," said Colorado AIDS Project Executive Director Deidre Maloney.

Back to other news for February 27, 2007

Search the Newsroom archive