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The National Education Association
The National Education Association promotes sexuality education as a necessary part of a national education curriculum. -
The YMCA
The YWCA introduces the concept of positive health and promotes sexuality education as part of a total health program; in 1913 it creates a Commission on Sex Education -
The 4th International Congress on School Hygiene
The 4th International Congress on School Hygiene promotes publicly funded sexuality instruction for parents for the purpose of gaining support for school sexuality education. -
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger opens the first birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York, providing family planning education, counseling, and imported diaphragms. She is arrested and jailed on obscenity charges. Sex Education by Maurice Bigelow is the first major publication on sexuality education and public schools. It stays in print for over 30 years -
Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. is adopted as the new name for the Birth Control Federation of America. -
Pamphlets for Schools
The American Medical Association and the National Education Association publish five sexuality education pamphlets for schools -
FDA
The Food and Drug Administration approves the sale of oral contraceptives. Opposition to sexuality education begins to be organized by the John Birch Society, Christian Crusade, Parents Opposed to Sex and Sensitivity Education, Sanity on Sex, and Mothers Organized for Moral Stability. -
Griswold v. Connecticut
The U.S. Supreme Court in Griswold v. Connecticut rules that there is a right to marital privacy that allows them to get birth control prescriptions -
Right to Know
Declarations in favor of the "right to know" about birth control are adopted by the National Urban League, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, and the American Nurses Association. -
Title X
Congress expands Title X to include community-based sexuality education and other preventive services for teenagers. "Sex and birth control education programs in communities around the country gathered pace, with increased attention to hard-to-reach populations, such as the handicapped, and to helping parents become the sex educators of their children." -
Adolescent Family Life Act
Adolescent Family Life Act is passed, funding programs to promote sexual abstinence before marriage. -
Abstinence-only Education
Congress authorizes $250 million for abstinence-only education as part of the welfare reform act -
FLEA
The Family Life Education Act (FLEA) is introduced in congress by Representatives Barbara Lee (D-Ca) and James Greenwood (R-Pa), presenting a vision of U.S. sexuality education policy that is research-based and supported by medical, public health, and education organizations, as well as the majority of the American people -
Bush Flawed
The year begins with a report from NPR/Kaiser/Kennedy School of Government that shows support for balanced sexuality education at 94 percent while the Bush administration budgets $170 million for abstinence-only education. At year's end Representative Henry Waxman publishes a report that finds over two-thirds of federally- funded abstinence-only programs rely on curricula that are seriously flawed -
No Abstinence-only Programs
Twenty-five states have rejected federal funding for abstinence-only programs, based on evaluations that suggest that they don't have an impact on behavior -
Congress Funds New Teaching
Congress funds the Personal Responsibility Education Program, which provides $75 million annually for evidence-based, medically accurate, age-appropriate programs to educate adolescents about both abstinence and contraception in order to prevent unintended teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV/AIDS.
