sex ed

I thought that the main reason why we had high teen pregnancy rates was because the law would not allow schools to teach comprehensive sex education. We worked to pass our bill last year, and over the summer it became law. Hooray! So now what? Now that the bill has passed, I have had my eyes opened up a bit about what we are really fighting for. Passing the bill was a tremendous step, and the NC legislature should be proud that they stood up for young peoples rights to accurate information, but there is MUCH more work to do.

Crossposted on Amplify
A year or two ago, the thought of going into NC public schools and training teachers how to teach comprehensive sex education would have seemed crazy.  Schools were required to adhere to a strict abstinence-only policy, unless they went through a long, complicated, messy public hearing process

This is from a fellow teen activist in North Carolina, and the original post is on Amplify:

Every 26 seconds another teen becomes pregnant. That means that before the end of my speech, there will be another 11 young ladies faced with the difficulties of a pregnancy, the challenges of motherhood, and the chore of growing up way before their time. A rate of one teen every 26 seconds equates to 3,323 teens in one day and 1,212,923 in one year and last year, I was one of those teens. On March 31, 2008 I became pregnant at the age of 17. I, like many other girls at my school, had the daunting task of dealing the pressures of a pregnancy and continuing with my schooling. And after my daughter arrived I had to deal with the challenges of motherhood while working on graduating, all before the age of 18. My junior year in high school, I became a statistic, a statistic that could have easily been avoided.

Cross posted on Ampify

Open Mic talked about the bullying bill that passed here in North Carolina last week, and I wanted to share some more great news. HB 88, the Healthy Youth Act of North Carolina, passed it final hurdle last week at the state legislature and Gov. Purdue signed it into law today! The NC legislature website has all the versions of the bill, all the vote history, and other legislative info for those who are interested. Also, the News and Observer had a nice front-page story about the Healthy Youth Act, they were so kind as to ask me for a quote. You can check that out here.

Crossposted from Amplify  

Today is National HIV Testing Day, and I wanted to share a video I saw on the White House website showing President Obama getting tested back in 2006:  

The White House included this information with the video:

One in five Americans currently living with HIV doesn't know it.  If our President and First Lady can get tested -- you can too.