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Monroe’s SB 55 May Tear Down Abstinence-Only Sex Ed

By Cory Allen Heidelberger on 2017-01-16

In our raging debate over Senate Bill 55, Senator Jeff Monroe’s latest effort to force his Jesus down our kids’ throats in science class, I’ve asked discussants to provide examples in current policy or practice of specific prohibitions from “helping students understand, analyze, critique, or review in an objective scientific manner the strengths and weaknesses of scientific information” that SB 55 would rectify. No one has yet responded to that challenge.

As a favor to Senator Monroe and other SB 55 backers, I offer a possible example: abstinence education.

SDCL 13-33-6.1 requires all public and nonpublic (!!) elementary and secondary schools in South Dakota to offer “character development instruction… to impress upon the minds of the students the importance of,” among other things, sexual abstinence. South Dakota has taken federal abstinence-only education funding. Lots of (arguably all) scientific information points to the weakness of abstinence-only education, but I can imagine a school board looking at state law and past funding and saying to teachers, “You can’t let kids critique abstinence-only education.”

SB 55 might thus protect teachers’ and students’ academic freedom to take an honest look at abstinence-only education and have fuller, richer, more evidence-based conversations about sex.

You’re welcome, Senator Monroe.

Related Reading: Abstinence advocates are hoping the Trump Administration will support abstinence-only education.

“Donald Trump will advocate for abstinence.” How can any logical being formulate that hope?

Published in South Dakota

2 Comments

  1. Kurt Evans 2017-01-16 15:24

    Cory writes:

    In our raging debate over Senate Bill 55, Senator Jeff Monroe’s latest effort to force his Jesus down our kids’ throats in science class …

    I’m not sure Senator Monroe’s bill is an effort to force Jesus down anyone’s throat. It seems more likely that it’s an effort to prevent South Dakota’s public education system from systematically concealing scientific alternatives to macroevolution and the Big Bang model:
    https://dakotafreepress.com/2016/12/30/hickey-reviews-2016-previews-2017-and-calls-for-open-party/#comment-70439

    Cory continues:

    … I’ve asked discussants to provide examples in current policy or practice of specific prohibitions from “helping students understand, analyze, critique, or review in an objective scientific manner the strengths and weaknesses of scientific information” that SB 55 would rectify. No one has yet responded to that challenge.

    In the comment section of that previous post, I’d written:

    Some of the Founding Fathers initially opposed the Bill of Rights, arguing that it was unnecessary because the federal government was already limited to the powers explicitly stated in the Constitution. The counterargument was that the Bill of Rights was a necessary precaution to protect liberty in the future.

    Regardless of whether any teacher is currently prohibited from objectively analyzing the scientific evidence, the bill strikes me as a reasonable precaution against such prohibitions in the future.

    https://dakotafreepress.com/2017/01/11/monroe-tries-again-to-sneak-religion-into-science-class/#comment-70330

  2. Robin Friday 2017-01-16 21:28

    Abstinence only is a failed fantasy of the Christian Right. Students need to be presented with reality, fantasy is for fools.

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