Action

A huge thank you to all of you who helped make our Reproductive Health Access (RHA) Coalition's Advocacy Day at the State Capitol in Springfield on March 30 so successful! It was a great day, but we are still in need of ALL of your help...

As you may know, Senate Bill 1619 (SB 1619), the Illinois Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) Bill, passed out of the Senate Public Health Committee last month, and although this is a great first step towards comprehensive sexual health education in Illinois schools, we need for the bill to come to the full State Senate for consideration. We would greatly appreciate your help in making this legislation becomes a reality for Illinois youth.

Take action now and send your State Senator a letter urging him/her to vote yes on SB 1619.

SB 1619 protects young women and men and helps them make responsible decisions by requiring that public schools, when they offer sexual health education classes,provide age appropriate and medically accurate comprehensive sexual health education classes. SB 1619 also empowers parents by allowing them to remove their children from classes if they don’t want them participate.

RHA Coalition Partner Planned Parenthood provides statistics that are startling:

• According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than three million teen girls have a sexually transmitted infection. That's at least one in four.
• Half of sexually active young people in the U.S. will contract a sexually transmitted infection by age 25.
• The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate among the world’s developed nations.

We must do better! That's why we need the IL PREP Bill in Illinois. Tell your State Senator that you support SB 1619, and demand that our youth get the information they need to protect themselves and stay healthy.

Click here to send your letter today!