Abortion activists held press conference on reproductive choice

Intro: Abortion activists held a press conference Monday to discuss the reality of prevention. Amy Becker has more from Jefferson City.

Representatives of Planned Parenthood along with clergy members, teachers, and teenagers held a press conference to address current legislation on contraception and sexual education in schools.

Planned Parenthood of Missouri issued a statement speaking against Republican legislator's efforts to cut access to birth control at local pharmacies and medically accurate informtion about contraception in schools.

Alison Gee, Vice President of public affairs for Planned Parenthood, said Missouri has moved from having one of the best health care safety nets in the country to having one of the weakest.

RunTime:
OutCue: SOC

Actuality: GEE.WAV

Run Time: 00:11

Description: Governor Blunt is making a great deal of noise about prevention and wellness in his attempts to tear down the very efficient, cost effective medicaid program and replace it with a bandaid health reform scheme.

Gee says because of cuts to health care 700,000 Missourians still reamin uninsured and 70,000 children lost health care in 2005. From the state Capitol, I'm Amy Becker. ######### An unlikely group of abortion activists held a press conference Monday to discuss current reproductive choice legislation. Amy Becker has more from the state Capitol. The group consisted of representatives for Planned Parenthood, an ex-principal, members of the clergy and a group of teenagers. They met to speak against current legislation on faith based contraception and sexual education in schools. Reverend Rebecca Turner, Executive Director of the Missouri Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, says the clergy doesn't want the legislature or attorneys to make laws that decide what a woman can and can not do.

Actuality: REVERAND.WAV

Run Time: 00:15

Description: Our faith teaches us to support women, to support them when they need reproductive health care, to support them when they need matters of private conscience and to keep government out of those matters.

Republican Senator Gary Nodler, sponsor of Senate Bill 432 concerning sex education in schools, says teaching sex education with abortion is not teaching pregnancy prevention.

Nodler says allowing abortion agencies to teach sex education in schools is an economically driven conflict of interest.

Reporting from Jefferson City, I'm Amy Becker.

##########

Abortion activists held a press conference Monday to speak against legislation concerning sexual education in schools.

Amy Becker has more from the state Capitol.

Republican Senator Gary Nodler wants to change the Missouri sex education law to follow with federal abstinence-only guidelines.

Nodler is the sponsor of Senate Bill 432, which would cut abortion agencies such as Planned Parenthood from teaching sexual education in schools.

Nodler says the bill isn't saying what's right, it is getting rid of a conflict of interest while following federal law.

Actuality: NODLER.WAV

Run Time: 00:12

Description: If you represent an organization that derives income from selling abortions, that's certainly not who you want teaching sex education in our school. There's an inherent conflict of interest.

Abortion activists claim studies have shown the abstinence-only programs Nodler wants to implement, do not successfully decrease the number of unintended pregnancy and STD rates in teenagers.

Nodler says the activists only believe the studies that support their beliefs and whether Planned Parenthood likes it or not, the programs are federal law.

From Jefferson City, I'm Amy Becker.