Romania’s Parliament passes controversial bill that changes "sex education" into "sanitary education"

After two years of debate between political parties, Romania’s Chamber of Deputies passed a bill concerning sex education classes in schools.

However, the new law allows sex education to be taught only to students in grade 8 or higher, and only with the consent of their parents or guardians. Moreover, the bill does not actually directly refer to these classes as sex education classes but uses the term „sanitary education” – a decision that led to a serious row in the Chamber of Deputies.

The bill is a modification of Law 272/2004 Article 46 line i) which states that children shall be the beneficiaries of “systematic delivery of life education programs in schools, including sex education for children to prevent contracting any sexually transmitted diseases, as well as under-age pregnancies”.

Initially adopted by Parliament in June 2020, the bill was challenged by President Klaus Iohannis at the Constitutional Court, whom the head of state asked to find the bill unconstitutional in its entirety, due to its infringement of children’s rights. The president’s objections targeted the most controversial parts of the bill, namely conditioning the participation of students in these classes on obtaining their parents’ written consent and replacing sexual education with sanitary education. However, the Court rejected his objections, so Iohannis sent the law back to Parliament to be re-examined and changed.

It took a year and a half for the bill to arrive at the final step of the legal process, and to pass the decision-making body after it had been put on the docket and then postponed more than 30 times, but it passed, on June 21, with 224 votes 'for', one 'against', and 49 members abstaining from the vote.

As mentioned earlier, the atmosphere during the meeting was heated, and sparks flew between the opposing political parties. On one side, PSD and AUR MPs accused the president, USR, and some of the more progressive members of PNL of trying to brainwash and sexualize children. On the other side, members of USR furiously brought up statistics related to underage pregnancies in Romania and other serious consequences that an inadequate educational framework has on children.

Here are some of their statements, collected by Agerpres and Europa Liberă