(Columbia) March 12, 2003 - Ginger Foley is a biology teacher at Richland Northeast High School. She also teaches her students sex ed a few weeks a year, "From a biology teacher point of view, this is a part of the continuum of life."

She means sexual education is mostly scientific and furthermore it's highly regulated. By state law, abstinence is the focus and contraception can be taught only in the context of marriage. Every parent also has the ability to opt out.

Foley knows the statistics on teen pregnancy and thinks the policy now does a tough job well, "The fact that we are human and have the huge brains we do calls for responsibility.

The Department of Education oversees sex ed, but each local district can make regulations more strict if it likes. Republicans propose moving that authority from Education Department to a committee the governor and lawmakers would control.

Majority Leader Rick Quinn (R) Columbia, questions the Department of Education now, "They're not fulfilling the law by giving the parents options on how to handle sex ed."

Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter (D) Orangeburg, says that's just not true. She says under the current system, pregnancies and teenage sex are down.  She doesn't understand the push for change, "It makes absolutely no sense. No sense at all."

The issue is about more than sex ed. It also says something about the governor's office. WIS News 10 has learned that moral conservatives close to the governor pushed to give Sanford full control of sex ed money.

Sanford says he did not even know about it.

It's clear there is a tug-of-war among republicans over just how conservative they should be and just how conservative Mark Sanford is.

By Lisa Goddard
Updated 7:23pm by BrettWitt