Ohio lawmakers passed a Bipartisan bill that requires schools to provide undefined “age-appropriate” sexual abuse prevention education with the caveat that provided materials must not promote abortion.
House Bill (HB) 105 sponsored by state Representatives P.Scott Lipps (R-Franklin) and Brigid Kelly (D-Cincinnati) known as Erin’s Law, was inserted into Senate Bill (SB) 288, a criminal justice bill sponsored by state Senator Nathan Manning (R-North Ridgeville) on December 15th.
The bill requires that school districts, including charter schools and science, technology, engineering, and math schools provide yearly developmentally appropriate student instruction in child sexual abuse for students in kindergarten through sixth grades and sexual violence prevention for students in seventh through twelfth grade. The legislation also requires staff members to participate in in-service staff training in child sexual abuse prevention. Parents can elect to opt their children out of receiving the instruction.
“The goal of Erin’s law is to educate teachers on signs of child sexual abuse, and most importantly, to protect children by giving them the knowledge of personal body safety. We should not wait until another child becomes a victim to take action,” Lipps said.
According to Lipps, a major motivator of his sponsorship was an abuse case in Springboro. A judge convicted former Clearcreek Elementary School gym teacher John Austin Hopkins in 2020 on 34 counts of gross sexual imposition involving 27 first-grade girls during the 2018-19 school year. He was accused of acting inappropriately with 88 students. The judge sentenced Hopkins to eight years in prison.
Nationwide 37 other states have adopted a version of “Erin’s Law,” named for Erin Merryn. Merryn, a spokesperson for the National Children’s Alliance, said that members of her family and adult neighbor sexually abused her for a total of six years begining when she was only six year old child. According to Merryn, all she ever learned in school was about “stranger danger,” but knowing it was not strangers who abused her she now advocates for schools to teach children personal body safety. In June, Merryn testified in support of HB 105 for the third time in seven years. If Governor Mike DeWine signs the bill, Ohio will become the 38th state with the law.
“I stayed silent because my only education was from these perpetrators,” Merryn said.
According to the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network (RAINN), of sexual abuse cases reported to law enforcement, 93 percent of juvenile victims knew the perpetrator, 59 percent were acquaintances and 34 percent were family members.
On December 14th, the Criminal Justice Committee adopted an amendment to HB 105 introduced by state Senator Sandra O’Brien (R-Ashtabula). The amendment prohibits the use of any material provided by entities that provide, promote, counsel, or refer people for abortion “or abortion-related services.”
O’Brien’s amendment also requires that law enforcement provide training to teachers before they offer the instruction to students.
According to Lipps, O’Brien aimed the amendment at keeping the left-leaning organization Planned Parenthood out of the process. Planned Parenthood does not have any specific curriculum for sexual violence prevention. However, it does have several sex education programs that include conversations about communication skills, decision-making, birth control, how to prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs), healthy relationships, consent, body image, anatomy, and puberty. Planned Parenthood vocally advocates for abortion and sex changes for minors.
The Center for Christian Virtue (CCV) has wanted to prohibit Planned Parenthood and other left-leaning organizations from the legislation for months. The organization circulated a proposed amendment with several changes to HB 105 earlier this year but the changes never made it into the bill. The proposed changes included stressing that students abstain from sexual activity until after marriage, that no instruction can advocate for abortion, market contraceptives, and “cross-sex hormones,” and that no instruction should imply that parents are untrustworthy.
According to the CCV the bill as written will not protect children from sexual abuse, but will both expose children to explicit sexual content and deny parents the right to direct the upbringing of their children.
“HB 105 doesn’t specify any curriculum to be used or even what organizations would be selected to join the task force. The bill only specifies that the task force will force their brand of instruction on sexual violence—and sexuality in general—upon children as young as kindergartners,” CCV policy director David Mahan said.
Mahan continued to say that Erin’s Law task forces reveals that they consider it a best practice to integrate their curriculum into the same controversial comprehensive sex-ed programs that parents all across Ohio have been fighting to remove from their schools.
The number-one provider of comprehensive sex education curriculum is the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), the parent organization of Planned Parenthood. SIECUS’ motto is “Sex ed for social change.”
Additionally, the National Sexuality Education Standards K-12 Advisory Committee currently includes the President and the Director of Public Policy for SIECUS, the Director of National Education Initiatives for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the Vice President and the Director of Education and Outreach for Advocates for Youth, a strategic partner of Planned Parenthood, and the Director of Training and Curriculum Development for the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).
Mahan continued that “While no responsible adult would oppose preventing sexual abuse, House Bill 105 appears to be yet another wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Merryn said that she supports the amendment excluding organizations associated with abortion from providing content for the instruction. However, she said that it would be better for a child abuse agency to train the teachers over law enforcement.
“There are trained child abuse agencies that can do this rather than put it all on law enforcement. However, my argument to that is better passed than dying for the 8th year so I will take it this way,” Merryn said.
The bill passed the Ohio House 79 to 7. The Ohio Senate voted to concur with amendments made in the House. The Senate vote was 28 to 1.
Lawmakers have introduced Erin’s Law four previous times, but it never ultimately passed until this year. It now heads to Governor Mike DeWine.
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Hannah Poling is a lead reporter at The Ohio Star and The Star News Network. Follow Hannah on Twitter @HannahPoling1. Email tips to [email protected].
