Reposted from Tell Them's Buzz blog by Aaron, part of the S.W.A.R.M. youth leadership council.

“So Wait, How Can You Get AIDS?”

I wish I could say that the person who asked me this question had been living under a rock for the better part of the last thirty years (which itself would be a feet since they are only 19), but no. This question was actually asked to me by someone who I consider to be a very intelligent individual, they were not taught it in school and they never had the opportunity to talk about it with their parents. I wish I could also say that this is the only person who has ever asked me this, yet sadly I have been asked this, and other questions, far to often by otherwise intellectual college aged individuals.

Before I go on, I would like to point out I do know that you cannot “get AIDS”: you catch the virus HIV and then this becomes AIDS. This is a fact I point out to the many of people who ask this question. Of course, they generally do not know there is a difference between the two, or they believe them to be two distinctly different things. How is that? Why is this? How is it that intelligent individuals do not know about diseases and complications that can affect their body? The answer is complex, yet actually very simple. We do not talk about them. In fact, we are ashamed to talk about them. We in South Carolina are afraid of sex.

When you think about it though, the fact we are afraid of sex in South Carolina is actually okay. After all, no one in this grand state is going to have sex until they have married their opposite sex partner (who is also a virgin!)in a lavish white wedding for the ages, and ride away onto years of blissful marriage where they will have 2.5 children. We don’t have underage moms. People with HIV/AIDS? Nope! STI’s? (not to be confused, as did one individual who will remain nameless, with STP’s, a rather delicious sandwich at a local sandwich shop here in Columbia, but I digress.). We actually live in a rather perfect state, it is all those other states, one would be led to believe “those yankee states”, that have the problems.

The fact is though, we have all of this in South Carolina. We have the nation's 3rd highest gonorrhea rate. We have the 9th highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation. Over 7,000 people living with AIDS. Oh, and yeah, 53% of South Carolina high school students have reported having sex.* We however denying it, we do not talk about it. We do not allow our children the opportunity to learn about it, to make informed decisions. I recall one participant at a presentation who asked me, point blank, “Wait? Are you saying I can get HIV from swallowing?” It is not that this person is in anyway not intelligent, they are after all attending a University, it is that they are uniformed. They have never been made privy to this information.

In order make South Carolina a better place, for all people, we have to be open, we have to be honest. We have to admit we have sex. I have sex. My friends have sex. Obviously at some point at time my parents had sex. I’m betting at some point in time your parents had sex too. We need to be honest with ourselves. Our denial is not making things better, if a building is on fire denying it is on fire does not do anything. The same is true for sexual health education. We must make it available. By denying accurate, fact based sexual health education in schools we are denying the youth of this state, and the nation, the ability to make informed decisions. Not only that by not teaching it in schools, we are furthering the belief that it is a taboo topic. This denial creates shame. This shame prevents parents having discussions with their children and children having discussions with their parents. This then creates a generation who does not have access to factual based knowledge that can help them, advise them, and provide them factual information about what can, and what may, help them in making informed consensual decisions.

It’s time to wake up. It’s time to see that change needs to be made. We need to admit to ourselves, South Carolinians have sex.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has been featured in this blog space before for his homophobic actions – most specifically, for calling on Virginia’s public colleges and universities to discriminate against LGBT students and professors. He has, unbelievably (or maybe believably?) done it again – this time calling on the social services board to discriminate against LGBT parents who want to adopt.

The Virginia Board of Social Services wanted to bar state-licensed adoption agencies from discriminating against potential adopters because of their sexual orientation. In the commonwealth, there are 1,300 children in foster care waiting to be adopted. And keep in mind that studies have shown there’s no link to sexual orientation and ability to raise children -- it’s the quality of the parent – not their gender – that matters.

Yet, Cuccinelli decided that he needed to insert himself into other families’ business and went to the Board of Social Services and to tell them they should discriminate from adopters based on sexual orientation. He hid behind the argument that Virginia shouldn’t prohibit agencies (many of which are private and faith-based) from discriminated based on sexual orientation because state and federal law do not offer such protection. So, this is the second time this year that Cuccinelli has made it a point to ask a Virginia entity to actively discriminate about LGBT people in the commonwealth.

Late in April, on the advice of Cuccinelli, the the Board of Social Services voted to strip protection for LGBT adopters from the proposed regulations. How shameful that in Virginia, Cuccinelli would rather see a child never go to a loving home at all than go to one with two dads or two moms. Cuccinelli thinks it’s part of his job to “hold up family values,” but this proves that he really only cares about one kind of family.

The Knowledge is Best youth council is now accepting applications for next school year! A project of Tell Them and Advocates for Youth, this youth council is composed of 10 awesome college and university students across the state, all working to promote comprehensive sex ed programs and policies.

Send you applications in now! Council members learn how to be fierce advocates, and also do fun and amazing things (letter writing parties over burritos; dance parties to raise awareness about SC's old sex ed law; etc). Check it out here! Deadline for applications is May 8th!

pic via

Check out the new campaign from Massachussetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy: "What's Next?": www.massteenpregnancy.org/policy/whats-next. It's a tongue-in-cheek way to call Congress out for proposing cuts to programs like Title X and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative...

They also have a FB page—where, first up—they hoard condoms in a safe to prepare for the condom ban! :) http://www.facebook.com/MATeenPregnancy

Last week, the Virginia General Assembly passed a last-minute bill (SB924) with an amendment redefining “hospital” to include “facilities in which five or more first-trimester abortions per month are performed.” This means the commonwealth’s Board of Health will now have to make first-trimester abortion providers conform to hospital regulations in order to stay open. That can include things like parking lot size, hallway width, and other non-medical building regulations that would effectively force providers who can’t pay for architectural updates to shut down.

Bills like this are know as targeted regulation on abortion providers, or TRAP, laws because they force only abortion providers -- and not, for example, a dentist’s office performing an outpatient surgery – to jump through additional regulatory hoops. Because it can cost up to $2 million to jump through these additional hoops (again, which only target abortion providers), clinics often have no choice but to stop operating.

Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw said it best – “If anybody thinks this debate is about women’s health, get a life. The only physician we have in this body has said what nonsense this is.” See NARAL Pro-Choice VA for more info on this TRAP bill, and to find out how your rep voted in VA.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I’d like to pause and write a little love letter to the sexual and reproductive health and rights movement. We’re not always on the same page, and sometimes I am super frustrated by how things are moving (or not moving), but you rock, and I appreciate you.

I appreciate you because without you I’d feel pretty isolated and alone. It’s hard growing up in a conservative/ Southern/ religious/ anti-choice community, when you are struggling to formulate your own views and identity and you’re pretty sure that it doesn’t quite align with what everyone around you is doing. It wasn’t until I started college and became active in this movement that I met other people like me. Feeling a sense of community is true nourishment for the soul.

I appreciate you because you are making efforts to involve other young people in this work (despite what some organizations *ahem* may claim). You provide a space for awesome groups like Advocates, Choice USA, RCRC, and others to not just introduce young people to the SRHR movement, but to truly train them in the skills they’ll need to lobby their member of Congress, host a rally, or call into NPR and share a comment about abortion legislation. These youth-serving organizations engage young people in the process, and in turn, young people help to shape the SRHR movement as a whole.  

I appreciate you because you value the intersection of many different movements and issues. I tried to explain this to someone outside of the SRHR movement the other day – many of us see this work as a continuum of issues, from housing rights to immigration to birth control pricing, etc. These separate issues don’t’ actually materialize in silos, so we shouldn’t face them that way either. Often we in the SRHR movement are competing for limited resources to do the work that we do, but it has been amazing seeing choice groups stepping up in support of the repeal of DADT, for example. Yes, we need to be specialized in order to become experts on our work, but I appreciate that many in the SRHR movement are passionate about and conscientious of other issues.

 I appreciate you because before we met I didn’t realize that you could change culture and society through the kind of policy and program work that I do. It wasn’t until I was in my early 20s that it dawned on me that I could do SRHR work for a living. Before that, I thought the only way I could impact contraceptive access or the right to an abortion was by becoming a lawyer and litigating my way through life. Not so! For getting to do what I love while still allowing me to pay the bills (for the most part), I thank you, movement.

Yes – we have our differences and there remains much to be desired, but without you I would be pretty lost and the world would be a little further away from sexual and reproductive health and rights for all.

And, just because this feminist is feeling the love (on a day when it would be much easier to be frustrated with the world), here's Rocky the dog with his love, a cuddly stuffed platypus:

Hi all - the Virginia Pro-Choice Coalition is sponsoring a pro-choice lobby day in Richmond, VA this Thursday, January 27th. Anti-choice legislators in Virginia are gearing up to repeal abortion access, contraceptive access, and sex education in the Commonwealth. We need people to come to Richmond and stand up for reproductive freedom!!

What: Virginia Pro-Choice Lobby Day
When: Thursday, January 27th
Where:  Virginia General Assembly, 9th Street & Broad Street,
Time: 8am - 2pm

For more details and to register, check out the Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia; www.ppaction.org/site/Calendar

The Kentucky State Senate last week passed an ultrasound bill last week that is ridiculous, medically unnecessary, and downright insulting to women. Senate Bill 9 (passed 32-5) would require that a woman seeking an abortion in Kentucky wait 24 hours and also view an ultrasound of the fetus. If a woman chooses to avert her eyes from the ultrasound, a doctor would still have to describe the image to her. 

Restrictions like this aren’t uncommon – in fact, 20 states either require that an ultrasound take place or be offered to a woman prior to the abortion procedure.  What’s uncommon – and especially troubling – in this Kentucky bill is that women are required to view the ultrasound or to have a description given to them.  Not only is it insulting to think that a woman doesn’t understand what the decision she’s just made, but it’s flat-out a medically unnecessary procedure. On top of all this, the bill requires a woman to wait 24 hours after a consult before having an abortion. Insulting- again – as though a woman doesn’t understand what she’s doing an needs the government to force her to think about it. This is devastating, as well, for women who can’t afford to take the time off again to go back to the clinic in 24 hours, can’t afford to hire child care for another day, or don’t have access to reliable transportation.

We’ve mentioned before that the anti-choice movement rolls out extremist anti-abortion legislation in states as testing grounds, then if it passes, models the same bills in other state legislatures.  In Nebraska last year it was a restriction on later term abortion. If this ultrasound bill passes all the way through in Kentucky, the anti-choicers will be pushing this in other states this winter and spring. 

Here’s the scoop, folks – last year a number of major abortion restrictions were passed at the state level. The one that got the most attention, however, was the Nebraska law, passed in April. This law bans abortions after 20 weeks’ gestation with the exception of when the woman's life is endangered or her physical health is severely compromised.