By Anna Miller and Dr. Scott Yenor
Idaho North Central Health District has covertly removed controversial sex education resources from its website in the face of public outcry. Gone are resources on its website relating to porn literacy, abortion, gender transition, and teaching kids to hide their browsing history from their parents. The district has not offered an explanation for the removal of these resources.
The change comes on the heels of public outrage over the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (IDHW) implementing Planned Parenthood-endorsed sex education in schools and purchasing materials and training from Education, Training, and Research (ETR), which promotes porn literacy. The IDHW instructs public health districts like Idaho North Central Health District to implement ETR’s Planned Parenthood-endorsed Reducing the Risk (RTR) curriculum in public schools.
The Wayback Machine shows how the health district has removed controversial resources from its website after being exposed for its radical sex education materials. IFF’s Center for American Education (CAE) has saved the records from the Idaho North Central Health District.
On September 14, 2022, at 11am, North Central Health District’s sex education program webpage included ETR trainings; Power to Decide; Sex, Etc.; and Love is Respect.
All of these resources have now been removed or hidden, as the following screenshot shows. Before or on the morning of September 15, 2022, after the CAE’s research was launched and drew public outcry, these resources were removed from the district’s website or replaced with an innocuous link.
A Reducing the Risk link previously directing viewers to ETR trainings on Porn Literacy and Queering Sex Ed was changed to ETR’s home page.
The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy link, which took students to Power to Decide and showed kids where to get an abortion, has been completely removed from the district’s website.
The Love is Respect link, which introduced kids to topics like polyamory and gender transitions and taught them to hide their browsing history from parents, has been replaced with a link to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The Sex, Etc. link, taking students to articles such as Transgender Men Can Get Pregnant, Too, surveys about masturbation, anal sex, and AMAZE.org videos featuring cartoon depictions of porn and abortion have been completely removed from the health district’s website.
Look at the evidence for yourself.
The health district has offered no statement to explain the removal. At the very least, this deletion shows that Idaho’s government, in the form of the North Central Health District, has offered on its website ETR’s radical materials on porn literacy and other practices against state law. There is no telling what additional sex education materials our health officials and school officials are using. Only a full and fair accounting of what the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare has contracted ETR to accomplish can reassure the public about the shadow government in Idaho’s schools.
This transparency problem cannot be overlooked. Imagine if these sexually explicit resources were recommended on a school district’s health curriculum webpage. Parents would be outraged. But what parent would think to look at a public health district website to learn what their child is being taught in school? Here’s hoping that the Legislature asks the tough questions our health districts seem uninterested in answering.
Anna Miller is education policy director at the Idaho Freedom Foundation’s Center for American Education. Follow her on Twitter at @annakate_miller. Scott Yenor is a Washington Fellow at the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life. Follow him on Twitter at @scottyenor.
