The Debate Over Sex Ed.: Fight is on in legislature over what class includes

RALEIGH

The General Assembly is locked in a fight about sex.

Birth control, abstinence, sexually transmitted diseases and even masturbation are some of the topics being debated -- all part of a legislative struggle to define the proper boundaries of sexual education in public schools.

Democratic supporters of a bill under consideration in the N.C. Senate want to require all local school systems to teach a so-called "comprehensive" sex-education curriculum, which would include some information about birth control. Under the bill, parents could have their children removed from class sessions in which birth control is discussed.

Republican legislators and conservative Christian groups strongly oppose the bill. They say that schools should stick to an abstinence-until-marriage curriculum, which is what's currently taught by nearly every school system in the state.

One of the few local systems that have adopted a different curriculum is the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system. The county's program is "abstinence-based," and teachers stress that abstinence is the only sure way to avoid pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. But they also briefly discuss methods of birth control.

"This is just the basics," said Bill Moser, the administrator who oversees the sex-education curriculum for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County schools. "It's not like driver's ed, where you're teaching them how to drive a car, where you're teaching them all the functions."

The idea, Moser said, is to give students enough context so that, if they are sexually active, they will be able to get additional information from a doctor or health clinic.

"The whole purpose is to let them know that it's a complicated subject," he said.

The school system even produced its own 13-minute video titled "Too Young: Abstinence and Contraception" to air on Cable 2, the school system's public-access channel.

In Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, schools send information to parents about the sex-education curriculum, which begins in fifth grade with a discussion of puberty and continues through the ninth grade. Birth control is discussed for one class session in seventh grade and another single class session in ninth grade. Moser said that parents can have their children removed from any part of the sex-education curriculum, but very few do so.

Conservatives worry that if the state moves away from abstinence-only education, it will undercut the value of marriage and open the door for other topics they consider inappropriate for the classroom. They point to national curriculums that include topics such as gender identity, masturbation and other types of sexual activity short of intercourse.

Sen. Jim Forrester, R-Gaston, said he doesn't understand why some legislators want to tinker with the status quo. He noted that teen pregnancies in North Carolina have declined in the past 10 years, when most schools have been teaching that all school-age children are expected to remain abstinent until marriage.

"So apparently they're doing a good job with the abstinence program right now," Forrester said.

Rep. Susan Fisher, D-Buncombe and the legislature's chief supporter of comprehensive sex education, responded that despite the drop, North Carolina still ranks high in teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases compared with other states.

The bill has stalled several times over the last few weeks in a Senate committee. Democrats, who hold majorities in both the Senate and the House, are discussing the bill privately, trying to assuage concerns from individual school systems and conservative Democrats.

The bill may come back up for public discussion on Wednesday.

An earlier version of the bill was narrowly approved by the House in April. That version is now being criticized by some senators and school officials because of the way it handles the children of parents who fail to choose between the abstinence-only curriculum and the more comprehensive curriculum.

Under the House bill, children would not get any sex education if their parents did not choose either option.

That would create logistical problems for schools. It would also be a misguided policy, said Sen. Martin Nesbitt, D-Buncombe.

"Those children of parents who don't send the form back in probably need more education than children whose parents do send the form back in," Nesbitt said. "We need to arm those children with as much information as we can give them."

Senate leaders want to amend the House bill to make "comprehensive" sex education the default choice. Students would be enrolled in that curriculum unless their parents chose to enroll them in the "abstinence-only" curriculum. As a practical matter, that would likely mean that those students would simply be sent out of the classroom on any days in which birth control was discussed.

An informal survey of parents in Winston-Salem last week suggested that parents' primary concern is having a choice about what their children are taught.

Melanie Whalen, whose daughter is a sixth-grader at Wiley Middle School, said she supports more parent involvement in the sex-education curriculum. And she said she believes that students should be taught about birth control and sexually transmitted diseases.

"I think they need all that information," Whalen said.

Jennifer Briggs, whose son is in seventh grade at Wiley, said that schools should encourage parents to contact their local representatives about the sex-education curriculum. She said that her family prefers an abstinence-only course of instruction.

"We think that it should be limited," Briggs said.

■ James Romoser can be reached at 919-210-6794 or at jromoser@wsjournal.com.

■ Journal reporter Christian Kloc contributed to this story.