Schools
let
students seek secret abortions
Parents not notified when 12-year-olds obtain 'confidential' medical
procedures
SACRAMENTO – A 12-year-old girl is prohibited from bringing aspirin to
California public schools without a note from her mother or father –
but in many California districts she may sign herself out of classes,
leave her junior-high campus without parental permission, secretly have
an abortion and return to school before the end of the day – and her
own family may be none the wiser.
Parents and educators across the state have been in heated debate over
school policies allowing children to be excused during class time
without parental notification for "confidential medical services" such
as abortions, birth control, and drug and mental health services.
They can't educate our kids, but they'll help them get abortions!
Education elites have given us the 'dumbest generation' - It's all in
"War on Children: How Pop Culture and Public Schools Put Our Kids at
Risk"
California's San Juan Unified School District sought to change its own
policy from one that prohibits students from being absent without
parental knowledge except during medical emergencies to guidelines that
would allow a student to leave for a "confidential medical appointment."
San Juan Unified School District proposed policy change
Brad Dacus, founder and president of Pacific Justice Institute, a legal
nonprofit, addressed the board at a school-district meeting in
Carmichael on Nov. 17 to discuss the policy, along with hundreds of
concerned parents who flooded into the meeting and filled the district
building lobby.
After much debate and input from the public, the San Juan Unified
School District voted 3 to 2 against the policy change. Parents clapped
and cheered when they heard the decision.
"We are pleased that the San Juan school board listened to the
community and abandoned this disastrous proposal," Dacus said in a
statement. "This is a victory for everyone who believes in parental
responsibility and local control of school decisions."
They were debating changing the current policy to reflect school
administrators' interpretation of California Education Code 4601.1,
which states:
Commencing in the fall of the 1986-87 academic year, the governing
board of each school district shall, each academic year, notify pupils
in grades 7 to 12, inclusive, and the parents or guardians of all
pupils enrolled in the districts, that school authorities may excuse
any pupil from the school for the purpose of obtaining confidential
medical services without the consent of the pupil's parent or guardian.
Pacific Justice Institute staff attorney Matt McReynolds told WND the
statute is ambiguous and only says the districts may dismiss students,
not that they are required to do so.
"If you use general principles of statutory construction, as we lawyers
do in interpreting these things, 'may' is very different than 'must,'"
he said. "It doesn't say they must dismiss them, which is how the ACLU,
Planned Parenthood and the National Youth Law Center interpret it. It
is a district-by-district decision on whether they will tell parents."
McReynolds said a district is not required to become an "accomplice"
when children opt for these services without their parents' knowledge.
"It doesn't mean students have to be dismissed during the school day to
go do it," he said. "They've got afternoons and weekends if they're
bent on doing that. You don't have to make the school a party to it."
McReynolds questioned how children as young as 12, 13 or 14 would be
transported to clinics for "confidential medical services" if they are
unable to drive and choose not to inform their parents.
"They can't drive themselves anywhere, so some adult or somebody with a
driver's license would have to get them to those so-called
'confidential' medical appointments that aren't so 'confidential' after
all when you really think about it," he said. "You're talking about an
older boyfriend, a boyfriend's parents, maybe even a school official?
Somebody has to get them there when they're that young."
McReynolds argues that hiding medical issues from parents may endanger
the health and wellbeing of a child.
"A parent who is 100 percent legally and morally responsible for taking
care of their minor child may have no real ability to do so if they
don't know that their child just had a major medical procedure," he
said. "Or in the case of counseling, they may have no idea their child
is dealing with substance abuse or suicidal thoughts or any number of
other things."
Asked whether a parent might successfully sue if any school district
that releases a child for a "confidential medical appointment" and a
child's life is endangered, McReynolds replied, "I think they would. We
have raised that possibility."
But Rebecca Gudeman, senior attorney at the National Center for Youth
Law, told the Sacramento Bee, "The great majority of children will
involve their parents in such issues – reproductive health and mental
health. It's the 25 percent we care about, in abusive households or in
families that don't believe in mental health care."
Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Raquel Simental said she did not agree
with the district's decision.
"It's the law that they have access to these services," she told
KCRA-TV.
The Pacific Justice Institute has also had success battling similar
policies that allowed students to sign out without parental knowledge
in other districts, including Modesto, Fairfield-Suisun and San Diego.
According to KCRA-TV, Sacramento, Natomas, Twin Rivers and Elk Grove
school districts still have policies allowing children to leave campus
for "confidential medical services" without parental consent.
McReynolds said several California school districts still have similar
policies.
He said no lawsuit had been filed with the San Juan Unified School
District. The move toward a policy change was recently initiated by
school administrators.
"Planned Parenthood and the ACLU tend to always threaten these school
districts with lawsuits if they vote differently than those groups want
them to vote," he said. "They claim it would be illegal, but they've
never actually filed a lawsuit when the school district adopts a
parent-friendly policy."
Should a school face a lawsuit for maintaining a policy that requires
parental notification, McReynolds said Pacific Justice Institute has
offered to "defend any school district that gets embroiled in an actual
lawsuit."
WND reported in 2004 when California Attorney General Bill Lockyer
issued an opinion that said schools are required to enact
confidentiality policies. But amid a grass-roots campaign organized by
a traditional-family lobby group, Lockyer backed off his opinion.
McReynolds said many parents aren't aware of guidelines at their
childrens' schools. But he said all parents should ask their own school
administrators whether their children may be excused without consent,
even families who live outside California.
"It's really important for every parent, whether their kids are in
public or private school, to find out what the school policies are," he
said. "You never know. See what kind of answers you get."
Contact: Chelsea
Schilling
Source:
WorldNetDaily
Publish
Date:
November 18, 2009
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