An article in The Evening Observer discusses the evolution in Jamestown’s sex education programs after the national spotlight on Nushawn Williams, who infected more than a dozen girls with HIV in the area in 1997, knowing he was HIV positive. The youngest girl was 13, the oldest in her mid-20s.

When DiMaio [a former health educator] first started teaching in the early 1970s, he said sex was something which couldn’t be discussed in health class. But then Nushawn appeared, and things changed pretty quickly.

‘‘Jamestown went from being very, very, very conservative on sexual education,’’ he said, ‘‘and then we went to being very progressive about it. I think what happens is some of these (organizations) had to rush into it real quick because they didn’t have anything.’’

After news of the HIV outbreak, there was a study in six county schools at the request of the Chautauqua County Health Department to provide insight into adolescents’ thinking, and their behaviors and attitudes.

The study found almost all high school students answered questions about HIV correctly, while two-thirds of younger students did as well. Ninety-five percent of the respondents indicated they learned about AIDS in school, with more than half indicating they had received flyers and pamphlets on the subject.

The researchers also found almost a third of the students had kissed by seventh grade, more than one-third of the eighth-graders had been touched on the breast or genitals. And of the 2,503 who answered the question, ‘‘Have you ever had intercourse,’’ 704 indicated ‘‘yes.’’ Many reported being sexually active between the ages of 13 and 16, with 47 percent of respondents indicating they did not or had never used a condom.

After the results of the report were published, Ms. Metzger said there was an increase in sexual education programming in area districts and communities. However, she and other county officials have noticed a drop in the number of programs offered as the years went by after the incident.

This article is an interesting look at one town’s increased scrutiny of its sex ed programs following a major event. It also raises the issue of how administrators and communities can continue to promote sex education over time, rather than having the programs languish as they did in Jamestown’s case.

The Genarlow Wilson case has thrust age of consent laws into the spotlight. Wilson was just released from prison on Oct. 26 after serving a two-year aggravated child molestation sentence for having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. In Georgia, the age of consent is 16.

An Associated Press article yesterday quoted school administrators who said sex education needs to include information about age of consent laws because many people are unaware that consensual teenage sex is often a crime. Adding to the confusion, the legal age of consent varies by state, ranging from 14 to 18.

“We do a disgraceful job of educating kids about the very real consequences that they face,” said J. Tom Morgan, a former DeKalb County district attorney who has a new book coming out called “Ignorance Is No Defense: A Teenagers Guide to Georgia Law.”

“If society is going to punish them as adults,” said Morgan, “then society ought to educate them.”

The executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association countered this, saying federally-funded abstinence-only programs are encouraged to teach age of consent laws as part of their classes.

But Wilson said sex education classes are lacking.

“Most of the time they just tell kids, ‘Use condoms,’” Wilson told The Associated Press
“That’s not the only thing they need to know about sex. They need to know that they can actually go to jail.”

Are you aware of the age of consent laws in your state? Do you think the laws are overly confusing, considering that the consent also varies depending on the closeness in age of the two participants? I thought it was interesting that the article mentioned new “Romeo and Juliet” exceptions by some states to prevent sexually active teenagers from being lumped together with child molesters.

Curious about the laws in your state? Avert, an international AIDS charity, has compiled worldwide age of consent laws. (U.S. state-by-state laws are near the bottom of the table.)

Here’s a fun tidbit for you:

You’re not the only one who might have been grossed out by sex education.

Oscar-winner Helen Mirren revealed that her sex education experience at 14 was a bit too revealing.

This film comes on, which is a midwives’ educational film. There is a close-up of a woman having a baby… it’s bloody and disgusting. Within 30 seconds, two boys had fainted.’

Mirren says the film put her off childbirth for life.

In light of the recent debate about a Maine middle school’s decision to offer contraceptives, it’s interesting to learn about the faces behind the debate. The coordinator of the Portland schools nurses, Andrea Rowe, is also Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe’s wife.

Rowe, 53, said she was prepared for controversy when an advisory board that reviews sex education programming in the Portland schools decided that birth control prescriptions should be made available at the middle school health clinic.

But she did not expect a national debate.

It’s not clear to me that Rowe was actually the driving force behind the decision, but her and her husband have been drawn into the debate, nevertheless.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution posted an editorial titled, “Are schools encouraging students to have sex?” with two opposing sides.

The debate was spurred by the recent decision by a Maine middle school’s decision to offer contraceptives to students.

“Students have enough internal pressure toward sex; they need authority figures to help them fight it, not help them give into it!” wrote columnist Shaunti Feldhah.

The counterpoint by columnist Andrea Cornell Sarvady included the following:

Pregnant teens? No one wants that. Yet I doubt the solution lies with people like Pam Stenzel, a Bush appointee to the Department of Health and Human Service’s task force for abstinence education guidelines. Here’s Pam, when she thinks she’s only among “friends,” addressing the effectiveness of an abstinence-only curriculum at a religious convention: “I don’t care if it works, because at the end of the day… I’m answering to God.”

Who do you agree with? Is providing contraceptives legitimizing sex for minors and even pushing them to have sex at an earlier age?

An article in Southern Voice discusses the decline of condom use among young gay men, which it attributes to a change in the view of AIDS from an automatic death sentence to a more manageable illness, thanks to the introduction of highly effective anti-AIDS drugs in the mid-’90s. The article also suggests that less visibility and promotion of condoms has not helped matters.

The condom-friendly sex education of the ’90s has been replaced wholesale by the Bush administration’s devotion to abstinence-until-marriage, while, simultaneously, marriage has become a legal impossibility for most gay and lesbian Americans.

This decline in condom use among young gay men, which has not been seen in the general population, is also leading to higher rates of HIV among young gay men.

The HIV rate for gay and bisexual men 13-24 years old declined by 30 percent from 1994 to 1998, but skyrocketed 41 percent from 1999 to 2003, according to a 10-year analysis of HIV diagnosis among youth ages 13-24 conducted by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

The CDC notes that although HIV diagnoses are on the rise among gay youth, studies “indicate that teens are making more responsible decisions about sex,” with more teens delaying sex, or using a condom more often.

I thought the article’s argument that sex education messages haven’t been updated or pushed the way that commercial products have been was interesting.

Latex condoms have been around since 1912, and have been the primary weapon to in the fight against HIV/AIDS for more than 25 years. Companies like Coca-Cola launch new advertising campaigns every few years to capture new generations of youth, while the wear-a-condom-to-avoid-AIDS message hasn’t been modified in decades, Children’s Hospital’s Futterman said.

The article also raised an interesting issue about the heteronormative content of sex education programs. Programs operate under the assumption that students are heterosexual and, according to an HIV-positive gay man quoted in the article, “During our sex education, they, No. 1, never talked about gay sex, and No. 2, they never talked about having sex and using condoms.”

With abstinence-until-marriage messages contradicted by constitutional same-sex marriage bans, gay youth “are basically told their very existence is not accepted,” said Futterman. Even sex education programs that talk explicitly about sex may not resonate with gay students, Lescano said. “Kids who self-identify as gay, and who are out and know that, do need interventions that are specific to them,” Lescano said.

Sex education programs are already a touchy subject. But as gay rights becomes a more prominent issue in our culture, it raises the issue of when sex education programs will also try to be inclusive of gays’ lifestyles. Will it be when/if same-sex marriage is mandated across the country?

An editorial by former congressman Bob Barr in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution states that a Portland, Maine, middle school’s recent decision to offer contraceptives to middle schoolers is being done so at the expense of the students’ basic education.

What is particularly distressing about the Portland, Maine controversy is not so much that it is taking place at all, but that it is occurring even as those very same public school systems fixated on providing their young charges with birth control options, are failing miserably to provide students an adequate basic education in subjects that really do belong in schools.

As the Portland, Maine education gurus are pushing condoms, pills, skin patches and implants onto middle school kids, more than half of its eighth graders — some 57 percent to be precise — either do not meet or only partially meet state standards for reading. Those same middle schoolers fare even worse in math and science — with 71 percent of eighth graders failing to meet, or only meeting in part, math standards; a figure that rises to 85 percent for science subjects. You get the picture. Portland’s middle school students may not be able to read or do math real well, but they’ll be able to tell you all about condoms and birth control pills.

Do you agree that contraceptives and sex education are offered at the expense of basic education? Does the type of education, abstinence-only or comprehensive, make a difference in your answer? I’d be interested in whether Barr would also argue that abstinence-only education takes away from the core education.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) has abandoned federal legislation that would’ve required the government to fund only programs found to have “medically accurate” information about abstinence.

But after opponents said — wrongly, according to Lautenberg’s office — that the provision would wipe out funding for abstinence education, the Garden State lawmaker withdrew the provision, called an amendment in legislative parlance.

“We tried to make sure that any information that is passed is reliable, factual and honest. It looked like amendments were going to be offered that were deliberately punitive,” Lautenberg said. “Better judgment suggested that we shouldn’t offer it at this time.”

He said he’d offer it in the future.

Lautenberg previously introduced legislation, Responsible Education About Life Act, to change the government’s abstinence education program.

A report by a House panel found three years ago that 11 of the 13 types of federally funded abstinence initiatives contain “unproven claims and basic scientific errors,” Lautenberg said last week.

A press release issued by Lautenberg’s office stated that the legislation was in response to the Government Accountability Office’s Oct. 2006 “Abstinence Education: Efforts to Assess the Accuracy and Effectiveness of Federally Funded Programs” report. The report found that the federal government doesn’t review the content of major abstinence-only programs for scientific or medical accuracy.

According to the press release:

During the past few years, there has been an increase in the number of federally funded programs using curricula that provide medically inaccurate or misleading information. Some of these medical inaccuracies include teaching young people that HIV can be transmitted by sweat and tears, citing failure rates of condoms as high as 69 percent, as well as giving inaccurate symptoms and outcomes of sexually transmitted diseases. In addition, the federally funded programs provided erroneous information about basic scientific facts, such as stating that human cells have 24 chromosomes from each parent when in fact the number is 23.

This article raises the question of what, if anything, has been done to correct inaccuracies in abstinence education programs. Also, if there isn’t standardized review of curricula, it really seems that schools could be teaching anything they want, as long as it meets the basic criteria of abstinence-only versus comprehensive. Do you think there should be more standardization of sex education programs?

President Bush’s recent appointment of a pro-abstinence policymaker as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs (DASPA) has drawn criticism, according to a CBS news story. Dr. Susan Orr, an associate commissioner at the Department of Health and Human Services, would oversee Title X.

Title X is the federal program that provides birth control and other family planning services to lower income families.

Orr has been criticized as being anti-contraceptive. It probably doesn’t help that Orr is currently on the board of directors of Teen Choice, a non-profit groups advocating for abstinence in lieu of contraception.

In April 2001, when President Bush proposed ending contraceptive coverage for federal employees, Orr said, “We’re quite pleased because fertility is not a disease. It’s not a medical necessity that you have it.”

Orr said by not adding a “conscience clause” that would allow employers to withhold contraceptive coverage, the council would force employers “to make a choice between serving God and serving the D.C. government.”

“It’s not about choice. It’s not about health care. It’s about making everyone collaborators with the culture of death,” she said.

Liberal and conservative organizations alike had strong opinions about the appointment.

“The appointment of Susan Orr is a nightmare for anyone who believes in birth control and sex ed, and further evidence that the Bush administration is intent on appointing an anti-choice extremist to head Title X,” said Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards. “This is yet another example of the Bush administration putting politics ahead of women’s health care.”

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins rallied to Orr’s defense, saying her 2000 comments against health coverage for birth control were misconstrued and merely demonstrated her support of consumer choice of coverage. “The real question is why anyone would want to mandate that the insured buy coverage they do not want or currently need,” Perkins said.

What do you think of Orr’s appointment? Do you think it’s a conflict of interest for Orr, who is currently on the board of directors of Teen Choice (a non-profit group advocating abstinence in lieu of contraception) to be appointed to this position? Or do you agree with people who say liberals and the media are unfairly criticizing Orr?

For more:

Additional media coverage included articles in The Associated Press and The Washington Post.

Various organizations, including nonprofit religious corporation Focus on the Family Action Inc., UC Irvine’s New University, Center for American Progress Action Fund think tank, health policy organization The Kaiser Network and family advocacy site LifeSiteNews.com, provided commentary and additional coverage.

Blog discussions include The Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire, Daily Kos, The Huffington Post, Feministe, The National Abortion Federation and RHRealityCheck.org.

Planned Parenthood posted an online petition against Orr’s appointment.

Several news stories this week highlighted the issue of whether middle schoolers should have access to birth control and sex education. CNN reports that a middle school in Maine approved plans to offer access to birth control at its health center, perhaps prompted by an “outbreak of pregnancies among middle school girls.”

Portland’s three middle schools reported 17 pregnancies during the last four years, not counting miscarriages or terminated pregnancies that weren’t reported to the school nurse.

King Middle School will become the first middle school in Maine to make a full range of contraception available, including birth control pills and patches. Condoms have been available at King’s health center since 2000.

While supporters said kids need better access to birth control, some opponents cited religious and health objections.

“We are dealing with children,” said Diane Miller, a former school nurse said. “I am just horrified at the suggestion.”

Another opponent, Peter Doyle, said he felt the proposal violated the rights of parents and puts students at risk of cancer because of hormones in the pill.

The Kaiser Network published a good overview of this topic, as well as links to additional print and broadcast coverage of this. The Huffington Post offers blog discussions of this.

On a related note, even if schools aren’t willing to go so far as King Middle School and offer birth control, some schools don’t even want to offer basic sex education. The Southeast Missourian wrote this week that middle school students being taught sex education by high schoolers through a program called “Postponing Sexual Involvement” reported a lack of sex education up to this point.

When Hileman asked how many students had enough information about sex, no one raised their hand. One student suggested the Internet as a source of information.

The leaders weren’t surprised by the lack of information; many local schools, especially at the junior high level, actively avoid sex education and refuse to discuss contraception.

Schools get away with not discussing the issue at all because “that’s a real hard thing to monitor,” according to Steve Williams, a health consultant for the state’s department of education.