User:EvanFG/Comprehensive sex education

Overview
An Act Relative to Healthy Youth, or the Healthy Youth Act, is a bill (HD.3454/SD.2178) that would require any public school in Massachusetts with a sex education curriculum to be fully comprehensive. This would include materials that are age-appropriate, medically-accurate, LGBTQ-inclusive, and consent-focused. Content would address how to build healthy relationships and how to prevent pregnancy and STIs when a person does have sex. The Healthy Youth Act was initially filed in January 2011 and has been revised multiple times since. This bill is a framework that does not mandate a particular curriculum, but does require that schools where sex education is already being taught fit this framework. Parents will be given 30 days-notice to review the material and opt-out.

In 2021, the Healthy Youth Act is being cosponsored by Senator Sal N. DiDomenico and Representatives Christina A. Minicucci, Vanna Howard, and Jack Patrick Lewis of the 192nd General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Bill SD.2178 has been advocated for over 10 years and has successfully passed the Massachusetts Senate, however it has yet to be passed by the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Controversy
Reactions to the Healthy Youth Act have been mixed, but it has gained increased support over the years. Some of its most dedicated supporters include Fenway Health, the Healthy Youth Coalition, and Getting to Zero. The Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts states that "comprehensive sex education is about more than just sex – it helps creates a culture of consent, recognizes and prioritizes LGBTQ youth health needs, and gives young people the tools to build healthy relationships... We can combat sexual assault at its roots by teaching young people how to build healthy, respectful relationships". In 2018, a poll of Massachusetts residents showed that 92% of people agree that students should receive comprehensive sex education in high school. In a testimony in support of the bill, supporters claim that "sex education is a perfect opportunity for youth to develop skills like communication, healthy relationships, decision-making, planning, and critical thinking. Such life skills can contribute to their positive development throughout adolescence and into adulthood".

The Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI), a conservative organization that promotes traditional Judeo-Christian values and the bill's main opponent, highlights the article "Pornographic 'Comprehensive Sexuality Education' in Massachusetts Public Schools" on the front page of their website. This article refutes Planned Parenthood's claims, stating that "it’s no wonder that Planned Parenthood is pushing it in our schools. Planned Parenthood administrators know that if they sexualize young people, they will create new customers who seek out their abortion services, sexually transmitted infection treatments, and transgender hormone therapies". Instead, MFI argues that the Healthy Youth Act would inappropriately expose underaged youth to "pornographic" content that would encourage youth to engage in sexual behaviors, concluding that "state education officials and local school administrators ought to reject Comprehensive Sexuality Education as the poisoner of children that it is".

Sexual Risk Avoidance (SRA) curricula has been promoted in direct opposition to the Healthy Youth Act. Advanced by Ascend, this curricula promotes an abstinence-only approach to sex education. Within SRA education programs "Ascend works with SRA educators, community organizations and more as they educate youth using a primary prevention health model".