NWCN.com

OLYMPIA, Wash. - Medically accurate sex education would be mandatory in public schools that choose to teach sex education under a measure that passed the state Senate.

After more than three hours of debate, the bill was approved on a 30-19 vote Wednesday and now heads to the House. Each Republican walked off the floor after casting their "no" votes.

Under the measure, schools would be required to discuss abstinence with students, but could not teach abstinence without also instructing students about other aspects of sex education including the use of contraceptives.

"Ignorance is not bliss," said Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, the bill's sponsor who shared with her colleagues that she had an unplanned pregnancy when she was 18. "Ignorance is unplanned pregnancies and I can assure you that no one knows better than I."

Opponents argued the measure doesn't put enough emphasis on abstinence, and that it takes local control away from the schools.

"We do not have a state-mandated curriculum for math. We do not have a state-mandated curriculum for reading, but with this bill we will have a curriculum for state-mandated sex education," said Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver.

Several amendments, including one that would allow schools to choose to have abstinence-only programs, failed.

Sen. Joe Zarelli, R-Ridgefield, argued unsuccessfully for another amendment that would allow school districts to offer separate abstinence programs in addition to sex education programs that discussed other forms of protection, like condoms.

"You can't put the two together and have success in one or the other," he said.

New voluntary sex education guidelines adopted by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction in January 2005 outline medically and scientifically accurate sex education.

The measure passed by the Senate Wednesday makes those guidelines mandatory for schools that have sex education programs. Schools that only offer abstinence programs would have to increase their programs, or they could choose to offer nothing.

HIV-AIDS education is mandatory in Washington, but general sex education is not. In the districts where the topic does come up - between grades 5 and 12 - state law mandates students be taught about abstinence but teaching about birth control pills or other ways to prevent pregnancy is optional.

The bill refers to "medically and scientifically accurate" as information that is supported by research, is published in peer-review journals and is considered to be objective.

But Sen. Janea Holmquist, R-Moses Lake, said that she hasn't heard of any schools in the state being criticized for their programs.

"Please tell me of a school that is teaching inaccurate sexual health," she said. "I don't think there is a school that is teaching inaccurate sexual health."

Under the measure, parents will be allowed to review the curriculum, and can keep their children out of the classes after filing a written request with school board or the principal.

Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn, took issue with the age-appropriateness of what children may be taught. Citing a sample of a fourth grade curriculum vocabulary list from King County schools, she cited some of the words listed as unnecessary for students to discuss.

"What does the word anus have to do with sex ed when we're talking to fourth graders?" she asked. "No parent wants their child to be talking about sex and anuses."

But Haugen said children "need to learn all the real terms of all those things."

"Children today are very different than we," she said. "Most of them have watched so much sex on television that they need to be educated to what is reality."