Healthy Youth Act Passes Assembly!

Greetings,

Last evening, the Assembly voted in session to pass the Healthy Youth Act and your Representative voted YES! 

The Healthy Youth Act requires schools that choose to teach sex education do so in a responsible, comprehensive manner that includes information about abstinence and birth control to prevent teen pregnancies and STDs.

We’re one step closer to ensuring that Wisconsin youth and teens receive medically accurate and age appropriate information in their schools! 

Please take a minute to say thanks to your Representative for their vote.



Send a letter to the following decision maker(s):
Healthy Youth Act Supporters

Below is the sample letter:

Subject: Thank you for supporting the Healthy Youth Act!

Dear [decision maker name automatically inserted here],

Thank you for helping to pass the Healthy Youth Act and working towards a responsible future for Wisconsin youth!

As you know, STI and the number of unintended pregnancies are on the rise here in Wisconsin. Twenty percent of new HIV infections in the state are diagnosed in young people ages 15-24. These outcomes have a devastating impact on the teen parents and state taxpayers. Teen mothers are more likely to drop out of high school and children born to teens are nine times more likely to live in poverty. Each year, Wisconsin spends $273 million on costs associated with unintended teen childbearing and STDs.

The Healthy Youth Act requires that public schools that choose to offer sexuality education include core elements that have been proven to reduce teen pregnancy and STI rates. These elements are taught when age appropriate and include: stressing abstinence as the most reliable way to prevent pregnancy and STIs; discussing contraception and barrier methods to prevent disease and pregnancy and the development of healthy life skills, to name a few.

Thanks to you, we are one step closer to comprehensive sex ed for Wisconsin schools. This is critical to ensuring our youth have access to this critical information to make healthy decisions, and their parents are better informed on what is being taught in their children's schools.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]
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What's At Stake:

~ The Healthy Youth Act – AB 458 / SB 324

~ Comprehensive and medically accurate sex education give teens the tools they need to stay healthy and make smart decisions now and in the future.

~ Real sex education is age-appropriate, scientifically-based and comprehensive. It includes information about both abstinence and birth control as ways to prevent unintended pregnancy and STDs.

~ 45% of high schoolers self-report that they are currently sexually active.  Yet only 61% of those teens used a condom during their last sexual counter.

~ 11,000 Wisconsin teens will become pregnant this year.

~ 20% of all new HIV infections in Wisconsin are among youth ages 15-24 years.

The Healthy Youth Act ensures that the most current standards of sex education are being taught in Wisconsin and that public schools are using programs proven to reduce teen pregnancy and STD rates by:

- Ensuring that Wisconsin public schools that choose to teach sex education do so in a medically accurate and age-appropriate way, including information about both abstinence and contraception to prevent pregnancies and STDs;

- Requiring a school board choosing not to provide sex education to notify parents that their students will not receive any instruction in preventing unintended pregnancies and STDs;

- Directing the state to apply for any federal teen pregnancy prevention funds.

Learn more: www.ppawi.org/sexed


Campaign Expiration Date:
December 6, 2009