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Sarah Anderson brings props when she visits middle schools in Texas to teach sex education. These props include a toy baby, symbolizing unplanned pregnancy, a snake representing bacterial infections, a pregnancy test indicating infertility, and a skeleton representing AIDS and cancer.
Students are informed that engaging in sexual activity prior to marriage carries emotional risks such as depression, guilt, and anxiety. They are educated that although condoms are commonly referred to as a means of “safe sex,” they do not guarantee protection against pregnancy or certain sexually transmitted infections, which may be incurable in some cases.
In her high school curriculum, it is stated that individuals who frequently switch sexual partners are influencing the molding and cohesion of their brains, leading them to perceive this pattern as normal. The curriculum suggests that this behavior may hinder the formation of the necessary neurological circuits required for establishing lasting relationships.
Anderson is not employed by the school district. Instead, she is employed by the South Texas Pregnancy Care Center in Seguin, which was established in 2001 with the aim of providing counseling to discourage women from choosing abortion. This organization is one among many crisis pregnancy centers in the state that dispatch their staff members to schools to engage with students and, in certain instances, provide sex education lessons.
These groups, also known as pregnancy resource centers, began to sprout around the country in the late 1960s as states passed laws legalizing abortion. Sex education has sometimes been a feature of their work. But in Texas, which has among the most crisis pregnancy centers of any state and where state health standards dictate that sex education classes emphasize abstinence, those sex ed efforts are particularly widespread. A Hechinger Report investigation identified more than 35 examples of these centers involved in dozens of school districts across Texas, and the actual number is likely higher.
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last summer and the implementation of a near-total ban on abortion in Texas, crisis pregnancy centers are expected to have a significantly increased influence in the future. In April, the Texas Legislature allocated $165 million over a span of two years to these organizations through its Alternatives to Abortion program, which has recently been renamed Thriving Texas Families. This funding amount is more than double the budget allocated in 2019 and supports the overall operations of these groups, excluding sexual education. However, it has been reported that at least 14 of these centers, as identified by Hechinger, are involved in school-based activities.
Despite limited evidence supporting the effectiveness of the sex education provided by certain centers, they continue to expand their efforts within schools. Public health experts argue that the methods employed by these groups, such as focusing on risks, overwhelming students with statistics, and displaying explicit images of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), do not effectively prevent or alter behavior. In fact, these approaches may hinder students from absorbing information crucial for making informed decisions about sex in the future.
Leslie Kantor, chair of the Department of Urban-Global Public Health at the Rutgers School of Public Health in New Jersey, stated that such an excessive amount of factual information that induces fear tends to be counterproductive. She emphasized that this approach is not effective in altering human behavior, as it has been proven across various health concerns.
The staff at crisis pregnancy centers assert the effectiveness of their approach. According to their students’ direct reports and internal surveys, many have reconsidered their decision to engage in sexual activity. The staff also emphasize that their collaboration with schools originated from a genuine concern to educate young individuals on avoiding unplanned pregnancies beforehand, aiming to intervene before their services are required. They firmly believe that abstinence is the most reliable and efficient method for preventing any potential risks associated with sexual activity. Furthermore, they emphasize their commitment to educating students about cultivating healthy relationships and planning for their future.
“At Real Options, a pregnancy resource center located in Allen, our focus lies in assisting individuals facing unexpected pregnancies,” stated Jennifer Shelton, Executive Director. With experience in providing sex education to numerous public school districts, Shelton emphasized the importance of addressing such situations early on in the decision-making journey.
In Texas, sex education typically takes up just a few hours of instruction a year in a handful of grades, and many school districts use outside groups and online providers rather than hiring experts in-house or training their own staff. Sex ed curricula are recommended by councils made up primarily of parents and community members. Many pregnancy center programs, which tend to follow a “sexual risk avoidance” approach that in addition to stressing abstinence also includes discussion of birth control and the signs and symptoms of STIs, are offered for free and align with the Texas state standards requiring that abstinence be promoted as the “preferred choice.”
But some health experts, legislators and students say crisis pregnancy centers, which have been accused of offering women misleading or inaccurate information about abortion risks, have no place in public schools. They view the sex ed courses as a stealth way for the organizations to develop connections to teens so the young people will turn to crisis pregnancy centers if they do become pregnant later.
James Talarico, a former middle school teacher and current state representative, has consistently proposed bills that mandate medically accurate sex education in all districts across Texas. Talarico, a Democrat representing north Austin and its surrounding regions, has expressed his apprehension regarding the delegation of sex education to external organizations with extreme political ideologies. He believes that if these groups are withholding crucial information or prioritizing specific content to advance their own agenda among young students, it is an unsuitable approach.
For three years as a student in Lewisville Independent School District, near Dallas, Nimisha Srikanth was taught by staffers of 180 Degrees, the education arm of Real Options.
According to Srikanth, during her eighth-grade year, the group distributed cups to each student and instructed them to transfer water between cups. The purpose of this activity was to illustrate the ease with which one could contract an STI. However, Srikanth recalled that her classmates took this exercise lightly, treating it as a joke and intentionally attempting to spread “infections” as much as possible. Srikanth graduated from high school in 2019.
Srikanth recalled how the presenter’s lesson in ninth grade took an unexpected turn when they began advocating for abstinence as the best choice. A witty remark from someone in the room, “I suppose it’s too late for me,” sparked uproarious laughter. Unfortunately, the teacher struggled to regain everyone’s attention thereafter.
Srikanth expressed that every year, the recurring message remained unchanged: “Avoid engaging in sexual activity before marriage. Consequences will arise if you disregard this advice,” Srikanth noted. “It heavily relies on fear and personal beliefs.”
180 Degrees is among the state’s most widespread crisis pregnancy center-affiliated sex ed programs, noting on its website that it has sent presenters to 14 districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. In 2019, Real Options reached 18,329 students “with education presentations about sexual purity,” according to its federal tax filing.
In an emailed statement, Amanda Brim, the Lewisville district’s chief communications officer, said that 180 Degrees was never adopted districtwide, but individual schools could choose to use the program. In 2022, she wrote, Lewisville adopted a new sex ed program to meet updated state standards, which went into effect that year.
According to Shelton, an experienced educator at 180 Degrees, their program focuses on honesty rather than scare tactics. Although they do present some alarming statistics, they ensure that students are well-informed about the potential risks of engaging in sexual activities. Shelton emphasized that the program goes beyond promoting abstinence and also addresses various subjects such as contraception, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and the emotional aspects of sex and relationships.
According to Shelton, she has the belief that regardless of one’s stance, it is crucial to concur that practicing abstinence is the most effective way to avoid both pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted infections. She emphasized the importance of setting higher expectations for young individuals, as she firmly believes that they possess the capability to meet and exceed those standards.
The Hechinger Report obtained six sex ed curricula, including the one from 180 Degrees, through public records requests and website reviews. These pregnancy center curricula uniformly focus on the potential risks of engaging in sexual activity, promoting the idea of waiting until marriage as a means to eliminate all potential risks.
Seventh graders in 180 Degrees classes, according to a presentation for parents, are taught that there are 27 different STIs and that, with their various strains, the total number of sexually transmitted diseases nears 1,000. The curriculum used by South Texas Pregnancy Care Center, called SHARE, lists the potential consequences of STIs as pain and suffering, damage to organs, damage to babies, death, embarrassment and rejection.
LifeGuard, the sex ed program affiliated with the crisis pregnancy center The Source, in Austin and Houston, includes a series of graphic photos to give “a medically accurate understanding of how these STIs can impact a person’s health.”
Samuel Ingram, a 2020 graduate of the Leander Independent School District, expressed his perspective on the matter by stating, “Their intention was merely to frighten us.” He further shared his desire for receiving practical guidance on practicing safe sex, rather than being presented with a graphic depiction of gonorrhea and the notion that it could have lifelong consequences.
LifeGuard, an organization that claims to educate 15,000 students each year, chose not to provide any comments regarding this article. The organization’s staff advised two school districts against sharing copies of their curriculum in response to a public records request from Hechinger. Additionally, they contacted the attorney general in an attempt to be exempted from the records law, arguing that the release of the material could harm their competitiveness and that the curriculum contained trade secrets. However, their request for exemption was ultimately denied.
In an email, Alicia Westcot, the senior director of math, science, and humanities at Leander, expressed that the district has chosen to utilize LifeGuard due to its adherence to state health standards and its ability to develop captivating educational material for students across all grade levels. Moreover, she mentioned that teachers have provided favorable feedback regarding the presence of subject matter experts who deliver the courses.
At the request of The Hechinger Report, four public health experts assessed portions of crisis pregnancy center curricula. They found that these programs often lack crucial information for students to accurately evaluate the probability of different risks. Additionally, they observed biased or misleading content, particularly regarding the effectiveness of contraception.
For instance, according to the SHARE script provided by the South Texas Pregnancy Care Center, educators are advised to inform students that teenagers often fail to consistently use condoms due to their incomplete brain development. Similarly, LifeGuard’s eighth-grade curriculum includes a section where presenters are instructed to rapidly go through a series of bullet points highlighting the proper use of condoms, followed by the question, “Do you understand the difficulties of consistently and correctly using condoms?”
While research on the effectiveness of sex ed is difficult to conduct, major medical organizations recommend comprehensive sex education — which typically discusses the benefits of delaying sexual intercourse along with information on methods for preventing pregnancy and STIs, gender identity and consent. They note that studies suggest such courses are more effective than abstinence-only programs at reducing teen pregnancy rates and increasing condom use if young people do choose to have sex, and that comprehensive sex ed produces other benefits, including improved interpersonal skills.
Many crisis pregnancy centers utilize a sexual risk-avoidance approach that includes more than just abstinence education. However, health professionals argue that these programs’ emphasis on the negative repercussions of premarital sex resembles the principles of strict abstinence-only approaches.
Kantor suggests that instead of solely providing statistics on the prevalence of STIs, educators should focus on equipping students with the necessary information and skills to have open conversations about protection with their potential partners.
Kantor stated that if he has limited time with a young person, he would not waste it by bombarding them with irrelevant facts that they can easily find on their phones if they are interested. Instead, he believes that instructors are making a regrettable choice by spending valuable time with young individuals who require essential skills, and yet providing them with information that is likely to be useless.
In 2020, The Open Door, a crisis pregnancy center in Cisco and Breckenridge, tried something new. Its staff brought a mobile ultrasound unit and a volunteer pregnant woman to a school to perform a live ultrasound in front of students.
Currently, the center collaborates with middle and high school students from 15 school districts located in central Texas. Their primary focus is to offer comprehensive education regarding sexuality and relationships. Additionally, in select instances, the center integrates live ultrasounds as part of their instructional approach.
“The sight of a baby moving in the womb makes it much more real,” expressed Shannon Thompson, the executive director of The Open Door. “This tiny being possesses a distinct heartbeat, fingers, toes, eyes, and nose, and is already shaping its own personality. Witnessing these details transforms their perspective. It sparks a seed of life within them.”
Thompson leads a broader initiative aimed at transforming the culture beyond her organization’s premises. Instead of passively waiting for clients, her team actively reaches out to community members to prevent them from engaging in risky behavior. They educate young individuals to assertively decline such behavior and create a sense of empowerment. Additionally, they promote their organization as a reliable and secure resource for those facing difficulties or unintended pregnancies.
To that end, The Open Door acquired a curriculum and hired an education liaison to teach sex ed in schools. Staffers have built relationships with school counselors, juvenile departments and camps, and they throw an annual back-to-school bash. This year, they adopted an additional curriculum to reach more grade levels and added a second education liaison to their staff, Thompson said.
Under her leadership, Open Doors’ state funding is rising: In 2022, it received nearly $380,000 via the Alternatives to Abortion program, compared with approximately $102,000 in 2019.
Thompson clarified that her group does not utilize scare tactics, instead emphasizing on empowering students to make informed choices and appreciate their self-value through the decision to delay engaging in sexual activities.
During a panel at the annual meeting of Heartbeat International, a national network of pregnancy resource centers, Thompson emphasized the immense significance of student education. She mentioned that it serves as an excellent platform to impart and educate individuals with the pro-life message.
In addition, sex education programs offered by various pregnancy centers incorporate messaging aligned with the anti-abortion movement, alongside promoting clinic visits to students.
The eighth grade curriculum of LifeGuard incorporates an engaging activity centered around fetal development. In this game, students are encouraged to deduce the timing of crucial developmental milestones, such as the initiation of heartbeats and the activation of the brain, taking place at either four, six, or eight weeks.
The LifeGuard programs guide students to The Source clinic for pregnancy tests or STI testing. The curriculum states that The Source is a reliable resource that offers comprehensive information to help individuals make well-informed decisions regarding unexpected pregnancies.
The Source received nearly $1.4 million in Alternatives to Abortion funding in 2022. Yet LifeGuard describes itself to parents and students as an “apolitical” program that doesn’t take a stance on controversial issues. Indeed, none of the crisis pregnancy center school curricula reviewed by The Hechinger Report contained explicit religious or anti-abortion content.
But the groups do emphasize their religious values in other aspects of their operations, sometimes stipulating that job applicants be Christian and hold certain values. A LifeGuard job ad for a curriculum specialist noted that the new hire must have a “strong commitment and dedication to the sanctity of human life and sexual abstinence.” A job posting for an abstinence educator from 180 Degrees listed the top qualification as: “Pro-Life, Christ follower, and believes that the Bible is the inerrant word of God.”
According to Shelton from 180 Degrees, religion holds great personal importance, but staff members refrain from introducing religious discussions or debating the pros and cons of abortion in the classroom. This decision is made out of respect for students and their diverse backgrounds. Similarly, Thompson stated that her group presents the “pro-life” message as one choice among many, without adopting a political position in educational settings.
Thompson emphasized the significance of organizations like hers steering clear of an anti-abortion, religious message in order to prevent estranging young individuals during her speech at the Heartbeat International conference.
Thompson emphasized the importance of not openly displaying your pro-life stance, as it may discourage potential young female clients from seeking your assistance. Building a strong rapport, establishing trust, and ensuring their comfort are key factors that encourage them to confide in you.
Meanwhile, Talarico argues that it is insufficient for organizations to merely claim impartiality in educational settings. He emphasizes that no public school district in Texas has the legal authority to evaluate educators based on their political convictions. Therefore, the selective choosing of individuals who align with these organizations’ radical ideologies should raise significant concerns.
The education program, SHARE, provided by the South Texas Pregnancy Care Center, is guaranteed to be free from any influence of the religious beliefs that motivate the group’s work, as assured to parents and educators.
During a presentation to the School Health Advisory Council in spring 2022, Anderson, the lead teacher of the program, highlighted the overlap between the message of abstinence from a health standpoint and a faith standpoint. She emphasized that this overlap doesn’t diminish the value of promoting abstinence as the most beneficial message for young people’s health. Although Anderson declined interview requests, she mentioned in an email that numerous school districts had reviewed and approved the SHARE curriculum, confirming its compliance with state health standards.
Anderson’s responsibilities include traveling throughout central Texas to participate in SHAC meetings, where she presents her sex education program to district parents and convinces them of its benefits. Subsequently, the councils provide official recommendations to their respective school boards.
Since Anderson joined the South Texas Pregnancy Care Center’s SHARE program in 2016, it has experienced remarkable success. Initially implemented in three schools, the program has expanded significantly, with teachers from the center now delivering presentations in ten schools by the 2021-22 school year.
Following the 2022 gathering in Yorktown, she successfully persuaded the district to implement SHARE. Furthermore, this year, Seguin was included in the expanding list of districts enrolled in the program.
Anderson has an additional responsibility in the school district, as she is a member of the SHAC. During the group’s regular meeting in April, she urged the members to support her SHARE curriculum, highlighting its alignment with the state health standards, which was a rare find among the options being reviewed by the council. Shortly after, the council members decided to narrow down their choices to just two, one of which was Anderson’s program. A month later, they made the official recommendation to endorse Anderson’s curriculum.
The Hechinger Report identified two cases where a pregnancy center employee, who is also a member of a SHAC, voted in favor of her own course. This situation raises concerns about a potential conflict of interest, according to Talarico. He intends to discuss this matter with his colleagues to determine if legislative action is necessary.
According to Sean Hoffman, the communications officer for the Seguin district, there is no evidence suggesting that Anderson had any undue influence on the decision.
He mentioned that school districts and school boards depend on the input and feedback from their communities. He also acknowledged the challenges in finding sufficient individuals to join SHACs and the lengthy process involved in assessing sex education curricula, which took over a year. He emphasized that when individuals express their interest in serving, they will be welcomed with the understanding that their intentions are to contribute towards what is deemed most beneficial.
Like many pregnancy resource centers, the South Texas Pregnancy Care Center has been expanding its work in the wake of the fall of Roe. This spring, it started construction on a new building, supported, in part, by donations from Seguin nonprofits and agencies. A construction class at Seguin High School is building the interior walls.
According to Janice Weaver, the executive director of the group, the demand for its services is also increasing. Previously, the center used to conduct an average of 20 pregnancy tests per month. However, in January 2023, they administered a total of 41 tests. Janice Weaver shared this information during a city council meeting in February, stating that there is a significant demand in Seguin. She expressed her enthusiasm about the potential of a new building to cater to this need.
The Open Door, along with other organizations, is establishing prenatal care facilities to establish themselves as a valuable source of medical assistance for a larger number of women. According to Thompson from Open Door, the organization operates in an area lacking medical services, and it will offer transportation and additional support to pregnant women for their prenatal appointments. Thompson further stated that the recent abortion restrictions in Texas have not altered the situation for women who are pregnant and anxious about their future. In fact, it has only intensified the demand for assistance.
Molly Davis, the president of the Islander Feminists club at Texas A&M Corpus Christi and a senior at the university, is spearheading a campaign against a crisis pregnancy center that is opening near campus. She expresses concern over the increasing influence of such groups in Texas and believes their activities within schools align with their broader agenda of persuading individuals, occasionally through misinformation, to continue their pregnancies.
Davis expressed frustration at the fact that crisis pregnancy centers, rather than healthcare professionals, are responsible for leading sexual education in the state. Davis, who personally knows classmates who were educated by these groups, believes that they are exploiting vulnerable young people. Davis further criticized the centers for imparting information with the intention of directing young individuals towards certain paths.
Texas has the ninth-highest teen birth rate of any state, 20.3 births per 1,000 females ages 15 to 19. And while teen birthrates have been falling in the U.S. as a whole since 1991, they remain among the highest in the developed world.
Ingram, a student hailing from Leander, remembers that a number of his fellow classmates ended up getting pregnant during their time in high school.
Ingram, currently a senior at Texas A&M Corpus Christi and an active member of the Islander Feminists, expressed his dissatisfaction with the sex education he received, stating, “I believe it was almost unfair to us. While the intention might have been to promote abstinence, those who chose not to were not adequately provided with comprehensive information.”
On the other hand, Srikanth claims that it was not until she enrolled at Texas A&M University and became a member of the campus organization FREE (Feminists for Reproductive Equity And Education) Aggies that she truly gained valuable knowledge.
Srikanth dedicated two hours of her Monday morning in May to distributing complimentary condoms, dental dams, pregnancy tests, and Plan B in the student center. She emphasized to those who approached the table that they were in a safe and non-judgmental space, understanding that many of them might have internalized negative beliefs about sex, considering it unclean and risky.
Her career plans were influenced by her experiences in middle and high school. She recently started a master’s program at Yale University and aspires to contribute to the fields of sexual and reproductive health and justice.
Her desire is for others to possess a superior knowledge base compared to her own during her upbringing.
Disclosure: Texas A&M University has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This story about sex education curriculum was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
Correction, : This story has been updated with correct information on the Alternatives to Abortion program's funding details and rebranded name.
