Senators Houck, Edwards, John Miller, and Northam voted against prohibiting abortion in public schools
By JR Hoeft | Friday, September 16th, 2011 | PoliticsIn 2008, Senator Mark Obenshain introduced what appeared to be fairly straight-forward and commonsense legislation with regards to abortion: keep it out of the public schools.
The summary of Senate Bill 542 reads:
Public schools; abortion services prohibited. Prohibits school divisions and their employees from providing abortion services. The bill also prohibits any provider of abortion services from providing information or course materials related to human sexuality or sexually transmitted diseases. Abortion services means (i) performing, inducing, or assisting in the performance or inducing of an abortion that is not necessary to save the life of the mother; (ii) encouraging a patient to have an abortion or referring a patient for an abortion that is not necessary to save the life of the mother; or (iii) developing or dispensing drugs, chemicals, or devices intended to be used to induce an abortion that is not necessary to save the life of the mother.
Part one of this bill is fairly obvious – keep education out of the abortion business.
Part two is a little bit more controversial (that’s not my personal belief, but I can see the argument) – abortion providers, such as Planned Parenthood, would not be able to provide materials to schools about sex – so, nothing about how to avoid STDs, birth control, etc. could come from them.
Yet, on Planned Parenthood’s web site, they describe themselves as “proud of its vital role in providing young people with honest sexuality and relationship information in classrooms and online to help reduce our nation’s alarmingly high rates of teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. Nearly 1.2 million youths and adults participate in Planned Parenthood educational programs every year.”
Obenshain’s bill found its way to the Senate Committee on Education and Health where it was dispatched 10-4 by Democrats, including Edd Houck, John Edwards, John Miller, and Ralph Northam – all targeted by Republicans in relatively conservative districts this year.
I wonder how their constituents feel about them not bothering to amend the bill to keep abortion as an option out of the public schools and, effectively, advocating that it is appropriate for an organization that has a history of implied eugenics to be proactive in teaching our young people?
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Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.
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11 Responses to "Senators Houck, Edwards, John Miller, and Northam voted against prohibiting abortion in public schools"
As a constituent of Sen. Edwards, I can tell you that I understand perfectly well that he is not “advocating” any result other than trusting local school boards to decide what is appropriate for their system, instead of imposing policy from Richmond. That used to be something conservatives could get behind.
While I am at it, since when did BD turn into a site that would stoop to the ridiculous slur of a headline like this. You admit that clause 1 (prohibiting abortion in public schools) is not controversial — my guess is that’s because it is a ridiculous idea that nobody has or would ever allow. And you are also well aware that clause 2 – prohibiting any information (including pro-abstinence advice) from a person based solely on where they work — is clearly what the senators in question object to, whether you agree with them or not. And you choose to headline the item: “Senators x, y and z vote against prohibiting abortion in public schools.”. Michael Moore would be proud of that level of shameless misdirection.
This is an excellent bill! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve visited a school and shook my head while an abortion was taking place in the middle of the hallway! I mean, if nobody else supports this bill, you’d think school custodial staff would!
But seriously, this bill ranks up there with the waste of time/taxpayer money that the mark of the beast bill was.
Welcome to the BD Tabloid online…
Barker also voted against this. Should be an interesting criticism to make that “Barker voted to allow schools to perform abortions” as that is factually true given the wording of the bill.
Ken, agree with you. Its a shame that BD-which until a year or two ago was responsible journalism (ableit with a conservative slant)-has evolved into a mere partisan cheerleading site.
While the first part of the bill is right in theory it also appears to be a solution in search of a problem. Maybe Sen. Obenshain will introduce a bill banning the flying of remote control helicopters inside of the state capital next. You never know that might be a problem one day.
So is there an epidemic of abortions being provided in schools that we should be aware about? Please, school nurses can’t even screen for scoliosis without parental consent. This bill (and this post) are ridiculous.
and Mickey Chohany voted to tax increases while on the Williamsburg City council. Can’t we conservatives get a break. I’m thinking about voting for Miller just because Mickey’s such a putz.
Nice headline, JR. Too bad The Weekly World News is out of business, they could have used talent like that..
This is as honest as claiming that someone who voted against the budget, which Republicans used to do all the time when Democrats were in charge, had voted to disband the State Police.
I think it is hillarious! “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” – type political stunt. A good gotcha move, and the best you can say about those “voting for abortions in school” is that they care so much about Planned Parenthood they’d walk into it. Frankly, we don’t need PP OR some abstinence group to have the parent consented sex ed class. It can be done with BOTH sides comfortable that children are not being indoctrinated EITHER way.
Lastly, it is hard to feel sorry for anyone getting boxed in. The Republicans did/do it and how many times have the Democrats framed the freakin question and set up the Republicans as voting against the children? Too many to count!
Voters get shafted to. You know when localities want to raise spending and taxes, they immediately hold hostages – libraries, rec centers, schools, police, fire, doggies and kitties(animal shelter etc etc.
A pox on all their houses. Let all the hypocrites enjoy the shoe on the other foot!
Uhh.. this is pretty low Jr.. Below what I expect from BD. Your site is better than this.
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