A freshman GOP state lawmaker is working to block schools from partnering with Planned Parenthood to teach students about sexual health — but her bill advancing through the Utah Legislature would allow public schools to continue existing sexual education relationships with faith-based entities, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
If Rep. Nicholeen Peck’s, R-Tooele, “School Curriculum Amendments,” or HB233, passes, it would bar schools from allowing “an entity employee, representative, or affiliate that performs elective abortions” from delivering instruction on “all health or health-related topics in a school that receives state funding.”
The Utah State Board of Education would be able to fine or withhold funds from schools or districts that violate the measure. Additionally, a fiscal note on the bill estimates that schools that currently work with Planned Parenthood will have to pay between $17 and $44 per student to update sex education curriculum standards and materials.
Members of the House Education Committee in a party-line vote Thursday advanced the bill to the House floor.
The Salt Lake Tribune was able to confirm that of Utah’s 41 school districts, at least two — Granite and Salt Lake City — have approved guest speakers from Planned Parenthood as part of their sex education curriculum.
“A little while back, I was at a school,” Peck told her colleagues as she presented the bill, “and when I was at this school, there was an elective abortion provider who was teaching at the school, and I was listening to this person teach, and I was kind of surprised, you know, by the fact that they were actually there.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Nicholeen Peck speaks to a lawmaker on the House Judiciary Committee prior to being elected to the Utah Legislature on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024, at the Capitol in Salt Lake City.
Although Planned Parenthood Association of Utah is currently suing the state for what it alleges is an unconstitutional near-total abortion ban, the majority of the services it provides are not abortions — which are currently legal up to 18 weeks in the state. It also offers sexually transmitted infections testing, birth control and other forms of reproductive health care, as well as a support group for teen parents.
Per its national action fund, Planned Parenthood is the single largest provider of sexual education in the country. The organization has delivered sex education in Utah schools for over 50 years.
All sex education in the state is opt-in, meaning parents must sign a permission slip before students participate. When instructors with Planned Parenthood speak in schools, they ask that teachers send home a second permission slip to notify parents of the organization’s presence in the classroom, and what topics it will discuss.
Under Utah law, all sex education is abstinence-based, and in some school districts, the curriculum is abstinence-only. It’s common for schools to invite guest speakers to help deliver that instruction.
Except for the requirement that all third-party instructors must follow state law — meaning they must stress that abstinence is the most effective way to prevent pregnancy and the spread of infections, and give medically accurate information — Utah does not have restrictions on guest instructors. All school districts must appoint a committee of parents and teachers to approve speakers and the materials they use.
During her presentation, Peck alleged that she observed a Planned Parenthood instructor hand out pamphlets “promoting sexual activity.”
“I immediately recognized, oh, this is against the law. We can’t promote this type of stuff to children,” Peck said. She did not provide additional details on the pamphlet, nor copies of it to lawmakers. Peck did not respond to a request from The Tribune to share a copy, photo or direct quote from the pamphlet.
Brittany Breneman, the education director for Utah’s Planned Parenthood affiliate, told the committee that the nonprofit follows state guidelines.
“Health education is important, and it should come from teachers who are confident and comfortable discussing the material,” Breneman said. “This is what we do as community health educators.”
She continued, “We are grateful for the invitations to be in the classroom, and we would appreciate the opportunity to just stay there, because this bill would block parents, teachers and school districts from choosing the health education curriculum that they want, removing local control and restricting parental choice.”
‘See what God is doing here!’
After a review of publicly available documents from several of the state’s largest school districts, The Tribune found that multiple districts invite speakers from religious entities to deliver sex education-related instruction.
At least two school districts — Davis and Alpine — for example, have approved instructors from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Family Services, previously known as LDS Family Services. Canyons and Granite school districts allow speakers from the faith-based Pregnancy Resource Center of Salt Lake City.
Spokespeople for the church did not respond to questions about what instruction its employees provide, or its purpose in allowing employees to provide sex education in public schools. The title of a Family Services presentation listed in a Davis School District document is, “Adoption is an option.”
An anti-abortion organization, Pregnancy Resource Center has been criticized for allegedly misleading pregnant people who are considering an abortion. Its unlicensed clinics offer pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, and encourage people who have begun a medicated abortion to pursue scientifically unproven and potentially dangerous “abortion reversal” treatments.
On one of its two websites — the second being more secular — the center declares, “Stop by for a tour! See what God is doing here!” and makes a seven-point “Statement of Faith,” that says, among other things, that “We believe the Bible to be the inspired, infallible, authoritative Word of God.”
According to a page about its “Reality Check” sex education program, the curriculum includes a range of topics, from “goal setting” to “consequences of premarital sex.”
At the bottom of a worksheet it gives to students, it includes its phone number, as well as the number of a “pregnancy hotline” — that number is associated with the Christian anti-abortion organization Heartbeat International.
State lawmakers voted last year to give hundreds of thousands of dollars to “establish a program to enhance and increase resources that promote childbirth instead of abortion,” and are eyeing increasing the money Pregnancy Resource Center gets from taxpayers again this year.
Several secular, local nonprofits are also frequent partners with schools in teaching sexual education, including the Rape Recovery Center, domestic violence shelter South Valley Services and Utah AIDS Foundation.
This isn’t the first time the Utah Legislature has taken specific aim at Planned Parenthood. After its abortion ban was blocked in court, it unsuccessfully attempted to ban the operation and licensing of abortion clinics.
State representatives in 2022 sent letters to health care providers and the then-director of Planned Parenthood threatening prosecution if they violated the abortion ban, even though it had been blocked by a judge and was not in effect. They later said the letter, written on House letterhead, was only their “opinion” and not a legal document.
When the nonprofit bought an ad in an annual legislative guidebook this year that said, “Abortion is health care,” Republican lawmakers prohibited it from being distributed in most areas of the Capitol.
