Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Kern Co-Author of Anti-Planned Parenthood Bill

Most of you know Representative Kern is anti-gay but did you know that she is also anti-choice and anti-Planned Parenthood? Kern co-authored HB 2628, the anti-Planned Parenthood bill.

HB 2628 states, “A school district shall not allow a nongovernmental entity, organization, or agency that…provides information about abortion services to be involved in the teaching of a sex education class…or to provide any curriculum, materials, tests, or surveys to the school or teacher for use in a sex education class or program.”

To support the bill, the authors claimed that Planned Parenthood promotes abortion in its public school education programs and uses its in-school sex education to influence impressionable teens to abort their babies. The authors also assured committee members that the bill was specifically written to ban Planned Parenthood and would not affect anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers from easy access to schools.

If this legislation passes, public school teachers will no longer be able to check out the terrific resources from our library, which include educational videos on assertive communication, anatomical models and contraceptive demonstration kits. PPCO will not be able to provide teachers and their students with an expert guest speaker on HIV, sexual responsibility, health relationships, or teen pregnancy prevention.

We have a preventable public health problem in this country — an estimated 750,000 American teens will become pregnant this year and millions more will contract a sexually transmitted infection.

Sometimes parents need help talking with their teens about sex. We need education programs in our schools that will keep teens healthy — by including information about abstinence as well as contraception, healthy communication, responsible decision making, and prevention of sexually transmitted infections.

As a health care provider, Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma knows firsthand the power of education to help teens make responsible decisions about their health. Every year we provide more than 8,000 women, men and teens in central Oklahoma with the health information and services they need to prevent unintended pregnancy and protect their health.

THIS BILL MUST BE STOPPED!

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