Dive Brief:

• South Carolina state Sen. Mike Fair placed a procedural hold on a bill that would have mandated the state's schools to teach medically accurate sex education and inform parents of how they are teaching it.  
• Supporters of the bill — which was passed by the state's Senate Education Committee, as well as its House — believe Fair has most likely killed the bill since the legislature will adjourn next week.  
• The bill, an update to the state's existing sex ed law from 1988, was meant to address the state's teen pregnancy rate — the 11th highest in the nation. 

Dive Insight:

While South Carolina's teen birthrate is still one of the highest in the nation, Fair pointed out that it has dropped 46% since 1992, stating his belief that any new legislation would impede this progress.  

In terms of what the update would have looked like, it's relatively small. Simply put, under the proposed bill schools would have to teach "medically accurate" sex education, defined as information that is “supported by peer-reviewed research that complies with accepted scientific methods, published in or by medical, scientific, psychological, sociological, government, or public health publications, organizations, or agencies such as the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the United States Health and Human Services Office of Adolescent Health.”

Fair, however, also argued that the existing law doesn't mandate medically-inaccurate information be taught, and that he therefore felt the bill was superfluous.  

South Carolina isn't the only state to run into issues passing sex ed legislation lately, as Louisiana — another state with high teen pregnancy rates — recently saw its own legislation impeded.