Don't Mess With Texans' Sex Ed

Rebecca Robertson Legal and Policy Director Does Texas really need more pregnant teens? Two shameful new bills are engineered to guarantee that. HB 1057 by State Representative Jeff Leach and SB 521 by State Sen Ken Paxton both heap budget-breaking burdens on public schools that are trying to give students quality sex education. Under these laws, schools would need written parent consent to offer sexual health education from any provider who is not a district employee. Even worse: the bills outright forbid health professionals to teach sex ed if the educators have any link to health providers that include abortion services. That means that hundreds of districts that lack their own resources to provide their own sex ed would have to give up or whittle their programs. And this is in the state with the fourth-highest rate of children giving birth to children. How can Leach and Paxton justify this? Easy: their bills exist only to bar Planned Parenthood from teaching students about sex and health. Attacking this effective, established provider of health care is priority #1 for these lawmakers. It's more important to Leach and Paxton than preventing abortions, protecting young girls, and allowing our communities to decide for themselves how they want to inform children about health and sex. Paxton and Leach are professional politicians. Planned Parenthood and public schools are professional educators. Leave our student's health in the hands of those who care most.