Alaska Bill Kicks Planned Parenthood and Abortion Businesses Out of Schools

State   |   Jim Minnery   |   Apr 14, 2015   |   1:02PM   |   Juneau, AK

Surely by now, Senator Mike Dunleavy must be thinking of that wry expression, “No good deed goes unpunished.”  We predicted that Senator Dunleavy’s common-sense bill to protect parental rights, SB 89, would provoke opposition.  Well, the opponents have come out in droves.  They’ve launched a campaign of misinformation about SB 89 that reminds me of the mass hysteria that we saw recently in Indiana with regard to that state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

I’ll share more about what the opponents are saying, and our responses, below.  But first: it’s time for your voice to be heard.  SB 89 passed out of the Senate Education Committee on Thursday of this last week, and it now goes to the State Affairs Committee for consideration.

ACTION NEEDED: Please contact the members of the Senate State Affairs Committee and urge them to support SB 89, because it protects a parent’s right to direct the education of their child.  (Contact information for the committee members can be found at the end of this email).

Let’s review what SB 89 proposes to do.  Here are the key provisions that have drawn the most attention:

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1)   First, SB 89 requires local school boards to adopt policies that recognize a parent’s inherent authority to withdraw their children from tests or assessments that they find objectionable; and to allow parents to withdraw their child from any activity, class or program that instructs on human reproduction or sexual matters, or which inquires into personal or private family affairs of the student that are not a matter of public record.

2)   Second, if a school plans to offer instruction dealing with human reproduction or sexual matters (i.e., sex education courses), then the parent must be provided at least two weeks notice, and the signed consent of the parent is required before the student may participate in such instruction.

3)   Third, SB 89 states that an “abortion services provider” may not offer course materials or teach sex education programs in the public schools.

Planned Parenthood is lobbying furiously against the bill, arguing that SB 89 is designed to “target” them specifically, and further arguing that it will prevent students from receiving sex education.  In reality, the bill’s language speaks for itself: entities that are making money by performing abortions ought not to be given a free, taxpayer-funded venue for promoting their services in front of impressionable young people.  That applies not only to Planned Parenthood, but also to other abortion facilities and their employees.    As Senator Dunleavy put it, “We’re not outlawing abortion service providers; we’re saying, ‘Take it out of the school.’”

For most of us, that’s just common sense.  But Planned Parenthood, which makes more money from doing abortions than any other entity in the world, apparently has a sense of entitlement.  Planned Parenthood thinks they’re entitled to be teaching your child about sex, and peddling their “services” to your child, in the public school that you pay for.  Here’s reality: there are dozens of options that schools have for teaching about human sexuality that don’t involve giving free advertising to America’s No. 1 abortion business.  There is nothing in SB 89 that disallows schools from offering sex education programs – provided they have the permission of parents to do so.

But Planned Parenthood isn’t the only entity opposing this bill.  As I predicted in my earlier email on this bill, the public school bureaucracy is also launching salvos against SB 89.  They claim it would just be way too burdensome to obtain the parent’s written consent before students can participate in a sex education class.  This is nonsense.  Schools obtain parental consent for all sorts of things – most notably field trips.  As just one example, click here to see the parental consent form that Alaska’s largest school district requires before students can go on a field trip.

Guess how many times this form is filled out every year and collected by school staff?  Well, the Anchorage School District website says that, “The Transportation Department dispatches approximately 6,000 field and activity trips annually.”  You do the math – how many students on average attend each field trip, and then multiply that by thousands.  The notion that this couldn’t easily be done for the infrequent sex education class is ludicrous.  Let’s translate what the public school bureaucracy is really saying: “We don’t want to lift a finger to help protect the rights of the parents – the same parents who happen to pay our salaries.”  If you’re not infuriated by that attitude, you should be.

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Click HERE to see what Planned Parenthood is already teaching your kids. Caution – It’s a graphic but eye opening look at what the largest abortion provider in America is doing in public schools today.

My friends, it’s time to saddle up and defend Senate Bill 89.  Senator Dunleavy has shown tremendous leadership in advancing this idea, but now the progressive left has simply come unhinged.  Don’t let them get away with their “Indiana-style tactics” for demonizing a perfectly reasonable, perfectly common sense bill.

Contact the members of the Senate State Affairs Committee and ask them to protect parental rights by supporting SB 89.

Important note: committee members Senator Bill Stoltze and Senator Charlie Huggins are co-sponsoring SB 89. Please thank them for their support, and ask the other committee members to support & cosponsor the bill as well!

SENATE STATE AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

Senator Bill Stoltze

907-465-4958

[email protected]

 

Senator John Coghill

907-465-3719

[email protected]

 

Senator Charlie Huggins, Vice-Chair

907-465-3878

[email protected]

 

Senator Lesil McGuire

907-465-2995

[email protected]

 

Senator Bill Wielechowski

907-465-2435

[email protected]

LifeNews Note: Jim Minnery is the president of Alaska Family Action.