Bob McDermott’s obsession with sex ed misinformation is harming Hawaiʻi keiki
The socially conservative politician’s continuing crusade against the state’s comprehensive new sexual education policy risks public health of Hawaiʻi’s children.
Hawaiʻi’s public schools badly need an updated, comprehensive sexual education strategy to help students who are sexually active, or considering becoming sexually active, make informed decisions that are in their best interests.
Hawaiʻi has one of the lowest rates of condom use among sexually active teens compared to the rest of the nation, and the 2013 High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) found that 54 percent of Hawaiʻi youth did not use a condom during their last sexual intercourse compared to 41 percent of youth nationally.
As a direct result, Hawaiʻi has a high rate of teen pregnancy, particularly in rural areas. For the aggregated years of 2008–12, pregnancies among females aged 15–19 years old in the State of Hawaiʻi were 49.6 per 1,000 women. The national average for the same time period was 29.4 pregnancies per 1,000 women.¹
A wealth of data and recommendations for best sexual education practices exists, and the Hawaiʻi State Board of Education (BOE) began moving to appropriately update its policies regarding sexual education in 2013. Central to the reform efforts is the belief that teens deserve to be fully informed about sex in all its forms. This is a big shift from Hawaiʻi’s historic stance on sex ed, which has focused on abstinence since 1995.
It’s well-established by now that abstinence programs do not do an effective job at reducing the spread of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) or decreasing teen pregnancy rates. To the contrary, there is evidence that these kinds of programs can actually deter the use of contraception devices like condoms, which exacerbates such outcomes.
Despite the soundness of this data-based policy shift, socially-conservative, religiously-evangelical Hawaiʻi State Representative Bob McDermott (District 40, ʻEwa Beach) has launched an exhaustive crusade to block the state’s sex ed reforms.
Whether Rep. McDermott likes it or not, the fact is some teenagers are always going to engage in sexual intercourse (22.3 percent of Hawaiʻi’s high school students are currently sexually active).
But support for abstinence-based sexual education and demonization of comprehensive approaches may be helpful in rallying McDermott’s conservative, religious voting base in ʻEwa Beach. McDermott has won five elections (1996, ’98, 2000, ’12, ’14) in ‘Ewa Beach, each time winning with just under or over 50 percent of the vote (roughly 2–3 thousand votes). Similarly, McDermott took a leading role during the 2013 marriage equality special session in rallying religious conservatives from across the island to oppose legislation that gave same-sex couples the civil right to marry.
McDermott’s crusade is doing real harm to Hawaiʻi’s youth, though, and a disservice to the health of his ʻEwa Beach community, and the public at-large. Attempts to codify the Hawaiʻi State Department of Education (DOE)’s proposed sex ed reform through the legislature have thus far failed. In 2014, a comprehensive sex ed bill died in the Senate Committee on Ways & Means. In 2015, reform advocates tried to put together a task force to find and propose best practices for sex ed in Hawaiʻi, but that proposal stalled out in conference committee.
Meanwhile, as part of a wider review of department policies, the BOE went ahead and passed a revision to the internal public school sex education policy on June 16, 2015, replacing the outdated abstinence program with a comprehensive approach to sexual health education. Rep. McDermott has continued to sensationalize and lie about certain aspects of the policy change (which has yet to be implemented) to scare parents, stir up homophobia and advance a bizarre, puritanical agenda. His latest move was an “informational” session held August 31, 2016 at the State Capitol. The event featured known homophobic propagandist Sharon Slater and was advertised using a deliberately misleading headline: “Hawaii First State in the Nation to mandate Sexuality Education for Kindergarten!” referencing BOE policy 103.5.
This policy does not actually mention Kindergarten anywhere at all. It is true that the “comprehensive method” of sexual education best practices that the new policy calls for does reference the introduction of sex education programs typically in Kindergarten, “sex education” means a lot more than discussions of intercourse, contraceptives and STIs. There are age-appropriate concepts that should be discussed with Kindergarteners so that they can experience a healthy and happy childhood. No one is talking about introducing 5-year-olds to the complicated and difficult journey of piecing together one’s sexual identity—no one except Bob McDermott and his supporters.
The Truth About Comprehensive Sex Ed
As the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States National Guidelines Taskforce concluded back in 2004, “sexual health education is not solely provided or learned from a single course or conversation; it is rather a synthesis of lifetime experiences and knowledge to form attitudes, beliefs, and values on identity, relationships, and intimacy.”
The National Guidelines Task Force has identified six essential concept areas for comprehensive sex education, which include “medically accurate information on human development, relationships, personal skills, sexual behavior, sexual health, and society and culture.”
The comprehensive approach focuses on developing certain “life behaviors” as outcomes of instruction. For each of the broad categories identified as a key concept, the guidelines note several life behaviors of a sexually healthy adult that reflect actions students will be able to take after having applied the information and skills from their years of education in school. For example, life behaviors under Key Concept 3: Personal Skills, include: “Identify and live according to one’s values”; “Take responsibility for one’s own behavior”; and “Practice effective decision-making.” (A complete list of life behaviors appears on page 14 of the guidelines.) While those behaviors are connected to sexual health, they certainly aren’t explicit or inappropriate for children to begin learning about as soon as they enter school.
The process of growing into a sexually healthy adult has a lot more to it than rolling a latex condom over a zucchini. And research has shown that a lot of it is completely age-appropriate curriculum that can, and should, to be taught from Kindergarten onward. In contrast, typical abstinence-based programs, like Hawaiʻi’s current policy, don’t begin until the 7th and 8th grade—after some students are already becoming sexually active, and when it may already be too late to prevent students from making potentially life-altering mistakes.
In addition, many abstinence programs use puritanical scare tactics to portray sexual behavior as dangerous and harmful, rather than using science to help teens understand sex as an important aspect of society and of their own life cycles. Indeed, many traditional abstinence programs (up to 80 percent, finds one study conducted for the Colorado State House Committee on Governmental Reform) are medically inaccurate, provide erroneous, negative information about condoms and STIs and are often subject to heteronormative bias that can alienate teens who are struggling to define their sexual identity.
Evidence pointing to the value of comprehensive sexual education, meanwhile, is strong. Those who oppose comprehensive sex education in schools, including Rep. McDermott, site an unproven theory that sex education increases the likelihood that young people will engage in sex. However, evaluation has shown that sex education that includes information about both abstinence and contraception does not increase the frequency of youth engaging in sex or make them more likely to do so at earlier ages.² States with comprehensive sex education programs that include abstinence in the curriculum, but do not emphasize abstinence as the only, or the most highly preferred option, have been found to have lower teen pregnancy rates as well.
As part of a risk reduction approach, comprehensive programs also cover topics such as STIs, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and contraceptive methods, including condom use. But this does not typically happen until students are 12 years old.
By contrast, sexual education for Kindergarteners and early elementary school students focuses on interpersonal relationships and social behaviors. The only sexual health messages that the comprehensive approach calls for between the ages of 5–9 are that “Girls and boys need to take care of their bodies during childhood and adolescence” and that, “Like other body parts, the genitals need care.”
Even from the ages of 9–12, sex-ed focuses on teaching that “Boys and girls should keep their genitals clean, healthy, and free from injury.” These are perfectly reasonable things to teach children; important information that can help prepare them to better handle the more complicated and difficult aspects of sexual health that they will have to deal with beginning around age 12.
Evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs, like the Safer Choices Program, have been shown to change teen sexual behavior by increasing youths’ knowledge and understanding of risk factors (e.g., pregnancy, STI) and protective factors (e.g., contraception, sexual values and confidence to avoid unprotected sex) that influence behavior.
For every dollar invested in the Safer Choices Program, $2.65 was saved in medical and social costs by preventing pregnancy and STIs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agrees that school-based sex education programs can be an effective and cost-saving method for reducing teen pregnancy and STIs.
Updating Sex Ed in Hawaiʻi
Sexual health education is provided to youth in Hawaiʻi as part of their health education curriculum. The Hawaiʻi Content and Performance Standards (HCPS) III Health Education Standards also includes content standards in areas such as mental and emotional health; healthy eating and activity; safety and preventing violence and injury; and tobacco, alcohol and drug free lifestyles. The policy revision was part of an ongoing comprehensive policy review by the BOE, that also included policies related to discipline, suspension, graduation requirements and Hawaiian language.
Prior to the June 16, 2015 revision of the sex education policy by the BOE, sexual health education was required by BOE Policy 2110 to be abstinence-based education, and to use one of seven Hawaiʻi Department of Education (DOE) approved curricula. Abstinence-Based Education Policy 2110 supported abstinence as the “most responsible way to prevent unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and consequent emotional distress.”
Sexual Health Education Policy 103.5 replaces the previous abstinence-based policy and requires comprehensive sexual health education to be offered in Hawaiʻi Public Schools. The new policy, in accordance with state law (HRS 321-11.1), states that the DOE “shall provide sexual health education to include age appropriate, medically accurate, health education.” The new policy further clarifies that education must include both abstinence and contraception and must include methods of contraception to prevent pregnancy and STIs, including HIV.
The policy also encourages healthy relationships and communication skills along with developing certain life skills such as critical thinking, decision making and making decisions about sexuality. Parents are no longer required to opt-in their children for instruction. They are, however, allowed to excuse their child with a written request. The new policy goes even further to make an effort to address and include the important role that parents have in their child’s sexual health education. A provision in the policy requires that a description of the curriculum used by each school be available for parents. Schools are encouraged to share this information via the school’s website, through mail, and at parent information nights.
However, one limitation remains: the state cannot mandate that sexual health or HIV education be culturally appropriate and unbiased. This is massive oversight, because biased instruction can be similarly as harmful to students as misinformation. Eight states, including California, have sexual health legislation that protects youth from instruction that is biased toward disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and religion.
Another glaring omission in Hawaiʻi’s policy: while education around contraception may include a discussion of birth control devices, the DOE forbids the distribution of condoms or other prophylactic devices on school grounds or at activities related to school.
The Costs of Misinformation
The “attack on the family” argument pushed by Rep. McDermott and articulated at his “informational” meeting by Sharon Slater cynically twists Article 16 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights into a weapon to attack people whose lifestyles or family structures do not align with heteronormative, puritan values.
Rep. McDermott’s misinformation campaign involves clear examples of withholding crucial information about human sexual health and physiology, and the maligning of scientific conclusions and vetted best practices for sexual health and sexually responsible relationships. He does the students in his district and across the state a disservice, regardless of his reasons. For a community leader like Rep. McDermott to try and scare parents, his constituents, into clinging to an archaic and inferior system in the face of overwhelming evidence that Hawaiʻi’s new comprehensive strategy would reduce the spread of STIs and lower teen pregnancy rates is is irresponsible from a health and safety standpoint.
The consequences of these lies are serious and can be devastating for young people:
Teen pregnancy and subsequent teen births have significant risks, consequences and social disadvantages for teen parents and their children. Teenage mothers are less likely to complete school and go to college, and more likely to remain single, which in turn puts them at higher risk for living in poverty.
Children born to teen parents are more likely to become teenage parents themselves, as well as have less stimulating home environments, lower cognitive development, less education, more behavior problems and, for boys of teenage parents, higher rates of incarceration compared to children born to non-teen parents.³
It is estimated that, in 2010, teen childbearing cost the United States approximately $9.4 billion in lost federal, state and local taxes.
STIs can result in long-term health effects. Since 2001, cases of gonorrhea have continued to rise in Hawaiʻi along with continued concerns with treatment due to antibiotic resistance. In 2014, Hawaiʻi ranked 23rd nationally in chlamydial infections (457 per 100,000 persons). Chlamydia infections are high among male adolescents 10–19 years (1,944 cases per 100,000) and even higher among females (4,446 cases per 100,000).⁴
Efforts to reduce teen pregnancy in Hawaiʻi can help reduce poverty, increase educational achievement, and improve the social welfare of children and their families. Reducing teen pregnancy and birth would also help to reduce public spending on teen pregnancies and strengthen both the United States and Hawaiʻi’s economic competitiveness. Efforts to increase protection during sexual activities could also reduce STIs including chlamydia and gonorrhea as well as protect against the transmission of HIV.
Teens in rural communities in Hawaiʻi can face health access consequences associated with living in geographically remote areas. They may have limited access to health care providers and public clinics, both of which are key locations for youth to receive sexual health and contraception education. Additionally, teens in rural communities may have issues with transportation and fear confidentiality, since the local providers may know or even be part of the teen’s family or social networks.⁵
While teen birth rates have been declining since the 1990s, rates in rural communities have been slower to decline.⁶ The National Campaign’s 2013 analysis on Teen Childbearing in Rural America identified that the 2010 teen birth rate in rural counties was approximately one third higher than the rest of the country.
Mandatory sex education in public schools allows those students in rural settings of the state to receive similar sexual health education as their urban counterparts. Without a mandate, small rural schools, which typically have fewer resources than urban schools, are less likely to offer sex education to their students. This is particularly important as Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders in rural areas of Hawaiʻi have some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the state and nationwide.⁷
Some have reported that rural communities are more conservative when it comes to sexual education. But assumptions about opposition from rural communities toward sex education should not deter a true leader from approaching parents and gathering feedback about community support and concerns regarding educational programs and curricula. Outside of education from family members, research has found parents in rural communities see school as a highly valuable place to supplement sex education instruction.⁸
Instead of citing any of this wealth of information and data to try and reach out to the people of his district in an informed manner; instead of honestly trying to do what is best for the health of his constituents and their children, Rep. McDermott continues to block the BOE’s attempts at policy reform through his fear-mongering campaign. The very things that groups like Slater’s claim to care about—like providing for “the right of children to grow up in a family environment and to know and be cared for by their parents,” as is guaranteed by Article 16—are, in fact, put at risk through abstinence-only and other repressive policies that have been shown to increase the spread of STIs and maintain high rates of teen pregnancy.
Outdated abstinence-based programs have been proven ineffective, and Hawaiʻi’s program has continuously failed students for the past 20 years. The BOE reform is a chance to help reverse teen pregnancy and STI trends, to secure the health and safety of our communities and to save the government—and, therefore, the taxpayers—money.
Elected officials have a duty to keep themselves informed of the latest research and data on issues of importance, and should not be relying on myths and stereotypes to make policy decisions. Students will make good decisions when they have access to data and information. Kids—even at a very young age—possess intelligence, curiosity and good judgment, and respond better to truth and information than lies.
Endnotes
Hawaiʻi Health Data Warehouse, “Pregnancies in Hawaiʻi (Residents Only), for Females Aged 15–19 Years, for State and County, for the Aggregated Years 2008–2012,” Hawaiʻi State Department of Health, Office of Health Status Monitoring, Accessed 2/25/2015
Baldo M, Aggleton P, Slutkin G., “Presentation at the IXth International Conference on AIDS. Berlin: Geneva: World health Organization,” Does Sex Education Lead to Earlier or Increased Sexual Activity in Youth?, 1993
Maynard, RA and LB. Shaw, “Kids having kids: economic costs and social consequences of teen pregnancy,” Feminist Economics, 6(1): 135–140, 2000
“2014 Hawaiʻi STD Cases, Hawaiʻi vs US Rates,” Hawaiʻi State Department of Business Economic Development & Tourism, 2014
Michels TM., “Patients like us: pregnant and parenting teens view the health care system,” Public Health Reports, Nov-Dec; 115(6): 557-75, 2000
Kost, Kathryn and Stanley Henshaw, U.S. Teenage Pregnancies, Births and Abortions, 2010: National and State Trends by Age, Race and Ethnicity, Guttmacher Institute, May 2014
Hawaiʻi Health Data Warehouse, “Live Births in Hawaiʻi (Residents Only), for Females Aged 15–19 years, by School Complex and Mother’s Race/Ethnicity, for the Aggregated Years 2008–2012,” Hawaiʻi State Department of Health, Office of Health Status Monitoring, Accessed 2/17/2015
Jordan, TR., JH. Price and S. Fitzgerald, “Rural parents’ communication with their teen-agers about sexual issues,” Journal of School Health, Oct; 70(8): 338-44, 2000
