Advocates of Comprehensive Sexuality Education Holding Press Conference in St. Paul
September 4, 2008
MEDIA ALERTA panel of clergy, youth and family advocates, and educators will hold a press conference today at 2:00 p.m. in the Mezzanine Conference Room of the Alliance Bank Center, at 55 East 5th Street, St. Paul.
These leaders will call on elected officials at the federal and state levels to stop funding for abstinence-only programs and to protect adolescent health by supporting comprehensive sexuality education.
Although $1.5 billion dollars in taxpayer money has been spent on abstinence-only programs since 1996, abstinence-only programs are not effective. One in four teenage girls has a sexually-transmitted infection, and of the 750,000 teen pregnancies that occur each year, 82% are unintended.*
The best way to protect America’s young people from unintended pregnancies, and from sexually-transmitted diseases and infections, is by providing comprehensive sexuality education in our public schools.
Speakers will include:
- Rev. Debra Haffner, Director of the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality,
Justice, and Healing
- Rev. Robert Eller-Isaacs, Minister of Unity Church-Unitarian of St. Paul and
President of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association
- Brigid Riley, Executive Director of Minnesota Organization for Adolescent
Pregnancy, Prevention and Parenting (MOAPP)
- Dr. William J. Doherty, Marriage and Family Therapist and Licensed
Psychologist
- Libby Arnosti, seventeen-year-old high school student and congregant at Unity Church-Unitarian.
Contact:
Rev. Meg Riley
Director of Advocacy and Witness, Unitarian Universalist
Association
email: revmeg @ aol.com
cell phone: (612) 741-8152
*For statistics, please visit Advocates for Youth, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Guttmacher Institute.
Last updated on Thursday, September 4, 2008.
