Take action for reproductive health education: Call your state Assembly representative today and ask for a NO vote on repealing the Healthy Youth Act 

On Tuesday, the Wisconsin State Assembly is poised to roll back progress made in comprehensive sex education standards by weakening the Healthy Youth Act.  

Please tell your state Assembly representative to vote NO on AB 337.

Call the legislative hotline: 1-800-362-9472

In 2010, then Governor Jim Doyle signed the commonsense Healthy Youth Act (PDF) which raised the state standards for how schools teach human growth and development, or sex education. ACLU of Wisconsin members like you contacted state legislators in support of the Healthy Youth Act because we know that:

• Comprehensive sex education works: Education programs which include both an emphasis on delaying sexual activity while also explaining the benefits of using condoms and contraception help teens delay sex and protect their health.

• People support it: Comprehensive sex education models are endorsed by national professional health organizations including the American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the National School Boards Association among others.

• Public schools should be teaching young people about their health: Teens need information to make healthy and responsible decisions about sex. Parents and students rely on their school to provide age-appropriate, medically accurate and non-discriminatory information about how their bodies work.

Comprehensive sex education shouldn't be subject to the political winds of the legislature. But the state Senate has already voted in support of weakening our state standards for sex education. The only way we can stop the repeal is in the Assembly this week.  

Assembly bill 337 would roll back progress made by the 2010 Healthy Youth Act by:  

• weakening prohibitions against discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation in sex education classes,

• requiring classes to promote abstinence as the preferred choice for unmarried people and to teach the socioeconomic benefits of marriage,

• removing the requirements to provide counseling and legal resources for students who are victims of rape or sexual abuse,

• weakening the definition of medically accurate instruction,

• allowing the state Superintendent of Public Instruction to apply for federal abstinence-only funding for schools,

• eliminating the requirement that schools must contact parents and inform them if anything less than comprehensive sex education would be offered,

• preventing health care providers such as nurse practitioners from providing human growth and development instruction.

Please tell your state Assembly representative to vote NO on AB 337.

Call the legislative hotline: 1-800-362-9472

Who is my legislator? Look up your state Assembly representative online.