With Florida leading the nation in new HIV infections, Democratic lawmakers say now more than ever the Legislature should do away with what’s commonly referred to as “abstinence-only” sex education in the state’s 4,300 public schools.
Sen. Dwight Bullard, D-Cutler Bay, and Rep. Reggie Fullwood, D-Jacksonville, are the leading sponsors of what they’ve dubbed the “Florida Healthy Adolescence Act” (SB 1056/HB 859).
The bill makes comprehensive sex education an option for districts — which “doesn’t force anything on school districts, on schools, on parents,” Fullwood said. Those districts that do choose to offer it would have to provide medically accurate, factual and age-appropriate information to students.
