Contents I. Introduction II. Existing Statutes and Funding Sources for Sex Education A. Federal Funding for Sex Education B. The Model: The California Healthy Youth Act III. Moving Towards a Solution A. Choosing Comprehensive Sex Education B. Mandating Sex Education C. Requiring Medical Accuracy D. Passive Consent with an Opt-Out Provision E. Addressing the Needs of LGBT Youth IV. Solving the Problem V. Conclusion

I. Introduction

In Canyon, Texas, teachers encourage students to "stay like a new toothbrush, wrapped up and unused" and compare females that engage in premarital sex to chewed-up gum. (1) In Tunica, Mississippi, teachers describe girls who have sex before marriage as dirty, then demonstrate this concept using a piece of unwrapped chocolate passed around a classroom. (2) In Nashville, Tennessee, a sex education speaker told students to spit in a cup, asked a girl to drink from that cup, and then compared the cup full of spit to a woman who has had multiple sexual partners. (3) She then described in graphic--and inaccurate--detail an abortion. (4) In New York, sex educators teach students that the vagina is a "sperm deposit," that it "receives sperm during reproduction," and that the penis is a "sperm gun." (5) Each of these abstinence-only lessons takes place in a state that receives federal funding to provide such education.

Abstinence-only education focuses on abstinence from sexual activity as the only method for preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections ("STIs"). Such education excludes any instruction about other means of safe sexual activity. Comprehensive sex education includes education about abstinence, but extends instruction to include contraception, sexuality, and other topics related to sexual activity. Most arguments about whether to institute abstinence-only or comprehensive sex education programs in schools are process-oriented; that is, they focus on how to provide sex education. (6) Much of the scholarly work about this topic presumes that these programs have the same goal, then analyzes which method is more effective in achieving that same goal. (7) These analyses are flawed because their basic premise is flawed; abstinence-only and comprehensive sex education do not have the same primary goal. While both forms of education do seek to reduce teenage pregnancy, teenage childbearing, and the spread of STIs, abstinence-only education's primary goal is to reduce premarital sex. (8) Comprehensive sex education seeks to reduce the negative impact of premarital sexual activity (9) and promote knowledge about reproductive health and sexuality. (10) Examining the problem from that point of view, the question then becomes which goal is more valuable, and which educational program the federal government should support.

States promote different approaches to sex education throughout the United States. (11) The most important distinction between states in the way they approach sex education is whether their statutory schemes provide for comprehensive sexual education or abstinence-only education. Another vital distinction is whether sex education is mandatory, (12) permitted, (13) or not addressed specifically or at all. (14) These distinct categories can be divided further; in those states that address sex education, some do...