The child of a teenage mom, Faustina Bohling didn't want to make the same mistake her mother did. But at age 16, she was pregnant with her first child.

Even though she got a pre-puberty talk in fifth grade and had a health class her freshman year at East High School that went over sexual mechanics and sexually transmitted diseases, she describes her sexual education as a "basic course."

Bohling, now 34, talks frankly with her children - who are 17, 13, 10 and 8 - about sex and abstinence. She thinks the Madison School District, for the most part, does a good job when it comes to sex ed.

But she wants to make sure children across the state get a comprehensive program, something more than just an abstinence-only education.

That's why Bohling testified this month in support of a bill in the Legislature that restructures public K-12 sexual education in Wisconsin. It requires school districts that teach sex ed do so in a medically accurate, age-appropriate way, including providing information about abstinence and contraceptives.

Supporters say the bill updates the main elements of what a sexual education program must include if offered by a school district and does away with abstinence-only policies.

Opponents argue that contraception should not be taught in schools. Matt Sande, director of legislation for Pro-Life Wisconsin, calls the bill a heavy-handed mandate.

School districts that choose to have sexual education programs will be required to teach about contraception under the bill's comprehensive approach, he said. "First and foremost, that's a violation of the principle of local control."

But Bohling said society needs to instruct young people about the consequences of early sexual activity.

"We're adults. It's our responsibility to teach our youth, so that way they can have the life that they're going to dream of," said Bohling, who graduated from high school and UW-Madison and now works for the Wisconsin Alumni Association.

The bill, which supporters call the Healthy Youth Act, is scheduled for a vote in the Assembly Committee on Education at 10 a.m. on Tuesday. A companion bill in the Senate will get a hearing at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday.

Chris Taylor, public policy director for Planned Parenthood in Wisconsin, said the state doesn't keep numbers on how many school districts use an abstinence-only curriculum. But a survey by the state Department of Public Instruction in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 61 percent of districts are teaching some form of a comprehensive program.

"This bill is seriously needed in the state," Taylor said. "We are facing a public health crisis with rising teen birth rates for the first time since 1994, and really exploding rates of STDs among teens."

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