By Carol Kauffman, Vermont Family Alliance
In early November, both local and national media reported that Vermont is now the first state to mandate condoms, in a variety of colors, to be made “readily available” and free of charge to all 7th through 12th-grade public school students.
Again, parental permission or knowledge is not required, becoming the accepted norm here in Vermont. Legislation such as this is a blatant disregard of the Vermont Supreme Court’s detailed ruling of parental rights and responsibilities. Once again, parents’ rights and responsibilities are being transferred to unknown adults within the public-school health offices, classrooms, athletic trainer’s offices, guidance offices, and other locations in the school according to the Agency of Education “Condom Availability Programs” guidelines. Everyone in the public school will have an active role in the Condom Availability Program. Everyone except the parents. Is it too onerous to ask parents to choose the adults they know and trust as they choose their doctors?
The Condom Availability Program was created in collaboration with the Department of Health, the Department of Education, and Planned Parenthood of New England- substantive parent representation and input was and continues to be absent.
This bureaucratic collaboration justifies their program using “Results from the 2019 Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), which is an anonymous survey distributed to middle and high school”. The bureaucratic alliance has taken sexual anonymity data and they have created a radically public program dependent on unknown adults- putting students at potential risk. There has been no attempt to identify and address those risks.
Sexual liberty advocates, beginning with Planned Parenthood, assume any adult willing to take a minor for an abortion, hand them condoms, or teach sexualized material in the guise of sexual liberties- without parental permission- are the adults acting in the child’s best interest–the only adults kids can trust to protect their sexual liberties.
Governor Scott and the Agency of Education are responsible to write laws and regulations in accordance with the Vermont Supreme Court’s ruling on parental rights and responsibilities, acquire parent input and science. It’s not too late. Understand a teenager’s brain before asking minors what color of condoms they want. “A Teenager’s Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults” by Amy Ellis Nutt and Francis E. Jensen should guide every program regarding minor sexual liberties.
If this concerns you, educate yourself on Proposal 5. Proposal 5 will be on the ballot in November of 2022.