BILL ANALYSIS
SB 1471
Page 1
SENATE THIRD READING
SB 1471 (Kuehl)
As Amended August 21, 2006
Majority vote
SENATE VOTE :24-14
HEALTH 11-3 APPROPRIATIONS 13-5
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|Ayes:|Chan, Berg, Mullin, |Ayes:|Chu, Bass, Berg, |
| |Dymally, Frommer, Jones, | |Calderon, |
| |Lieu, Montanez, Negrete | |De La Torre, Karnette, |
| |McLeod, Richman, | |Klehs, Leno, Nation, |
| |Ridley-Thomas | |Laird, Ridley-Thomas, |
| | | |Saldana, Yee |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
|Nays:|Aghazarian, Nakanishi, |Nays:|Sharon Runner, Emmerson, |
| |Strickland | |Haynes, Nakanishi, |
| | | |Walters |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Enacts the California Community Sexual Health
Education Act. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires any program that provides instruction or information
to prevent adolescent or unintended pregnancy, or to prevent
sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV, that is
conducted, operated, or administered by any state agency or is
funded directly or indirectly by the state, or receives any
financial assistance from state funds or funds administered by
a state agency to satisfy the following:
a) All information is required to be medically accurate,
current, and objective;
b) Individuals providing instruction or information on
pregnancy, sexuality, and sexually transmitted diseases are
required to know and use the most current scientific data
on human sexuality, human development, pregnancy, and STDs;
c) The program content is required to be age appropriate
for its targeted population;
d) The program is prohibited from teaching or promoting
religious doctrine;
e) The program is required to be culturally and
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linguistically appropriate for its targeted populations;
and,
f) The program is prohibited from reflecting or promoting
bias against any person on the basis of disability, gender,
nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, or sexual
orientation, as defined in current law.
2)Requires the program, if it consists of instruction or
information that is delivered in a single session, to satisfy
all of the criteria in #1) above and:
a) If it is directed towards minors and addresses STDs,
include information that the only certain way to prevent
STDs is to abstain from activities that have been proven to
transmit STDs;
b) If it is directed toward minors and addresses pregnancy
prevention, include information that the only certain way
to prevent unintended pregnancy is to abstain from sexual
intercourse;
c) If it addresses sexually transmitted diseases, provide
information about the effectiveness and safety of one or
more drugs or devices approved by the federal Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) for reducing the risk of contracting
STDs; and,
d) If it addresses pregnancy prevention, provide
information about the effectiveness and safety of one or
more drugs or devices approved by the FDA for preventing
pregnancy.
3)Requires the program, if it consists of instruction or
information that is delivered in multiple sessions, to satisfy
all of the criteria in subdivision #1) above and paragraphs a)
and b) of #2) above and: provide information about skills for
refusing unwanted sexual activity and communicating with
sexual partners; and, provide information about the
effectiveness and safety of all drugs and devices approved by
the FDA for reducing the risk of contracting STDs, and
information on local resources for testing and treatment of
STDs. Requires the program, if it addresses pregnancy
prevention, to provide information about the effectiveness and
safety of all drugs and devices approved by the FDA for
preventing pregnancy, including, but not limited to, emergency
contraception.
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4)Defines "age appropriate" as topics, messages, and teaching
methods suitable to particular ages or age groups of children
and adolescents, based on developing cognitive, emotional, and
behavioral capacity typical for the age or age group.
5)Defines "single session" program as a single presentation or
contact designed to provide awareness and information about
preventing pregnancy, or sexually transmitted diseases,
including outreach activities in which educators, outreach
workers, or youth peer educators provide oral or written
information to individuals during a single encounter.
6)Defines "multiple session" program as instruction or an
informational presentation about preventing pregnancy or
sexually transmitted diseases that is provided to the same
audience over more than one session.
7)Defines "medically accurate" as verified or supported by
research conducted in compliance with scientific methods and
published in peer review journals, where appropriate, and
recognized as accurate and objective by professional
organizations and agencies with expertise in the relevant
field, including, but not limited to, the federal Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Public
Health Association (APHA), the Society for Adolescent Medicine
(SAM), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and the
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).
8)Requires an applicant, with the exception of publicly funded
schools receiving only general education funds to provide
comprehensive sexual health instruction or HIV/AIDS prevention
instruction, as a condition of receiving state funds or
state-administered funds for any program or activity described
in subdivisions # 1), # 2), and # 3) above to attest in
writing that its program complies with all conditions of
funding, including those enumerated in this bill.
9)Requires the applicant, if the program is conducted at a
publicly funded school, including charter schools, to indicate
in writing how the program fits in with the school's plan to
comply fully with the requirements of the California
Comprehensive Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Prevention Education
Act.
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10)Prohibits anything in this bill from being construed to limit
the requirements of the California Comprehensive Sexual Health
and HIV/AIDS Prevention Education Act, as specified.
11)Prohibits anything in this bill from applying to one-on-one
interactions between a health practitioner and his or her
patient in a clinical setting.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee analysis, annual General Fund administrative costs,
likely $200,000 to $500,000, for DHS to monitor programs. To the
extent DHS can consolidate the program monitoring and/or
technical assistance it currently provides to include the
information proposed in this measure, this cost may be reduced.
COMMENTS : According to the author, programs that include
information about both contraception and abstinence reduce rates
of unintended pregnancies and STDs, while abstinence-only
programs have never been proven to be effective. California, a
national leader in promoting and protecting reproductive health,
is committed to comprehensive, medically accurate sexual health
education. Despite this successful policy, scarce state dollars
for teen pregnancy prevention are funding programs and
activities that do not meet the basic, common sense guidelines
that schools must follow. Currently, no statutory standards
exist for programs outside of public schools. This bill expands
upon SB 71 (Kuehl), Chapter 650, Statutes of 2003 and provides
much needed guidance to state agencies that fund or administer
community-based programs or public education campaigns, in order
to ensure that California has a consistent and effective
approach for preventing unintended pregnancies and STDs.
SB 71 enacted the California Comprehensive Sexual Health and
HIV/AIDS Prevention Education Act. The Act revises,
streamlines, clarifies, expands upon and deletes primarily
redundant or obsolete provisions of current law related to sex
and HIV/AIDS prevention education.
According to the Public Health Institute's (PHI) "No Time for
Complacency: Teen Births in California 2006," despite recent
improvements, California's teen birth rate is hardly exemplary.
In 2004 more than 50,000 teens (4% of all female teens aged 15
to 19) gave birth in California, and many more became pregnant.
PHI states that the tendency to use the national teen birth rate
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as the comparative norm might be encouraging policymakers and
advocates to set California's goal short of a more ambitious
reduction that reflects our true potential. Instead, it would
be more inspiring to compare California's teen birth rate to
other industrialized societies. California's teen birth rate is
four to ten times higher than rates for France, Spain, Italy,
the Netherlands, and Japan. The report concluded by saying that
it would be naive to assume that there is any single solution to
resolve the complex issue of teen childbearing. Nevertheless,
there can be little doubt that California's unprecedented
investment in teen pregnancy prevention has contributed to its
achievement over the last decade of the largest decline in teen
birth rates of all fifty states.
Analysis Prepared by : Melanie Moreno / HEALTH / (916)
319-2097
FN: 0016608