American Civil Liberties Union : Letter to Senator Lautenberg and Representative Lee Supporting Their Introduction Of The REAL Act

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Letter to Senator Lautenberg and Representative Lee Supporting Their Introduction Of The REAL Act (2/15/2005)

The Honorable Frank Lautenberg
United States Senate
324 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington D.C. 20510

The Honorable Barbara Lee
Unites States House of Representatives
1724 Longworth HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Senator Lautenberg and Representative Lee:

We write to convey the American Civil Liberties Union's strong support for the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act. This bill will ensure that teens receive complete and medically accurate sexuality education vital to protecting their health and lives.

REAL would be the first federal program to fund comprehensive sexuality education, providing states with funding to teach age-appropriate sexuality education that includes information on both abstinence and contraception. While abstinence would be taught as the only sure way to prevent pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections, REAL would require that funded sexuality education programs also include vital information on contraceptive use.

REAL would thus help to counter dangerous federally funded abstinence-only-until marriage programs that censor information critical to protecting young people. The ACLU has long opposed the use of federal and state dollars on abstinence-only education, as research shows that such programs are often based on ideology and religion rather than complete medical information. Given that approximately 822,000 pregnancies occurred among 15 to 19 year old women in 2000 alone, and that almost one half of the new sexually transmitted infections occur annually among 15 to 24 year olds, it is clear that we cannot afford to censor information vital to teens. Rather, as REAL ensures, teens deserve full, non-biased information to protect themselves from unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.

The ACLU applauds your efforts to ensure that teens receive medically accurate, scientific sexuality information that is free from religion and ideology. We thank you for introducing REAL.

Sincerely,

Laura W. Murphy
Director

Gregory T. Nojeim
Associate Director and Chief Legislative Counsel

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