NEWS FLASH

Wisconsin GOP Senate Passes Abstinence-Only Bill That Prohibits Teachers From Teaching Contraception | Yesterday night, the Wisconsin Senate passed a bill that requires public school teachers “to promote abstinence and marriage over contraception in sex education classes.” Currently, sex education classes must include use of contraception in a comprehensive curriculum. Overturning the ban on abstinence-only classes passed last year, the bill will remove the contraception requirement and “instead mandate that schools teach that abstinence is the only reliable way to prevent pregnancy and disease. The benefits of marriage would also have to be taught.” The GOP bill passed 17-15 along party lines and now heads to the GOP-led Assembly. Republicans argue that they “are trying to back away from the bill passed last year that we feel mandated sex ed that was too nonjudgmental, too explicit and at too young an age.” State Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D), however, said simply that Wisconsin “was taking a step back to the Flintstone era.”