[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 4059 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







109th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 4059

 To prohibit departments, agencies, and other instrumentalities of the 
   Federal Government from providing assistance to an entity for the 
development of course material or the provision of instruction on human 
development and sexuality, if such material or instruction will include 
       medically inaccurate information, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                           November 16, 2006

Mr. Lautenberg introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL



 To prohibit departments, agencies, and other instrumentalities of the 
   Federal Government from providing assistance to an entity for the 
development of course material or the provision of instruction on human 
development and sexuality, if such material or instruction will include 
       medically inaccurate information, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Guarantee of Medical Accuracy in Sex 
Education Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds as follows:
            (1) A 2006 Government Accountability Office report entitled 
        ``Abstinence Education: Efforts to Assess the Accuracy and 
        Effectiveness of Federally Funded Programs'' finds that the 
        Department of Health and Human Services does not review the 
        content of the major federally funded abstinence-only education 
        programs for accuracy.
            (2) All federally funded programs aimed at helping young 
        people make healthy decisions regarding their relationships and 
        sexual health should include medically accurate information.
            (3) A 2004 report from the Minority Office of the Committee 
        on Government Reform of the House of Representatives found 
        serious medical inaccuracies associated with a large majority 
        of federally funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.
            (4) The Society for Adolescent Medicine (SAM) found in a 
        2006 position paper that abstinence-only-until-marriage 
        programs ``provide incomplete and/or misleading information'' 
        and states that ``efforts to promote abstinence should be based 
        on sound science''.
            (5) The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists 
        have also expressed ``the importance of ensuring that all 
        federally funded sexuality education programs include 
        information that is medically accurate and complete''.
            (6) The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) believes that 
        ``children and adolescents need accurate and comprehensive 
        education about sexuality to practice healthy sexual behavior 
        as adults''.
            (7) The American Public Health Association (APHA) 
        ``recognize[s] that sexuality is a normal, healthy aspect of 
        human development ... and that individuals of all ages require 
        complete and accurate information about all aspects of 
        sexuality''. APHA ``endorses the right of children and youth to 
        receive comprehensive sexuality education that includes facts, 
        information, and data and that demonstrates an appreciation of 
        racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity''.
            (8) The American Medical Association ``urges schools to 
        implement comprehensive, developmentally appropriate sexuality 
        education programs that are based on rigorous, peer reviewed 
        science''.
            (9) Over 1 billion dollars in citizen taxpayer money has 
        been spent on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs in the 
        past quarter century without significant monitoring of the 
        content of these programs in order to guarantee they contain 
        medically accurate information and exclude inaccurate data.

SEC. 3. MEDICALLY INACCURATE SEX EDUCATION.

    (a) Requirements.--A department, agency, or other instrumentality 
of the Federal Government shall not provide funds or other assistance 
to an entity for the development of course material or the provision of 
instruction on human development and sexuality, including any sex 
education, family life education, abstinence education, comprehensive 
health education, or character education, if such material or 
instruction will include medically inaccurate information. Before 
providing such funds or other assistance, the department, agency, or 
instrumentality shall require a sufficient assurance that such material 
or instruction will not include medically inaccurate information.
    (b) Definitions.--In this Act, the term ``medically inaccurate 
information'' means information related to medical, psychiatric, 
psychological, empirical, or statistical statements that is unsupported 
or contradicted by peer-reviewed research by leading medical, 
psychological, psychiatric, and public health organizations and 
agencies.
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