Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Right-to-life propaganda -- will it be part of the Kansas school curriculum soon?

The Kansas state House added a measure to require teaching public high school students about abortion onto a state education funding bill. The House voted 74-49 to add the provision, which also includes teaching students about fetal development, to the bill.

Under the measure, teachers would show photos of unborn children to students, discuss the medical risks associated with having an abortion, and provide students information about the pain a baby feels during an abortion.

...Rep. Peggy Mast, a Republican, told AP her concern about teen health issues prompted her to add the abortion provision to the bill.

"Young women who go in for an abortion procedure aren't really educated as far as the development of their baby," she said. "They're going to find out eventually, somehow, and then they're going to be traumatized." ...


Of course, it may not be a mandatory part of the curriculum, because sex ed isn't mandatory in Kansas anymore:

For almost two decades, the board required comprehensive sex education classes. But as it revised rules for accrediting schools, it allowed the regulation to lapse.

In addition,

the State Board of Education is considering a proposal to require sex education to include nine consecutive weeks of abstinence-only instruction.

I'm against abstinence-only sex education as a matter of principle, but in addition I'm wondering: what the hell is there to say about abstinence that takes nine weeks? How many ways are there to say "Don't do anything, ever, until you get married"?

(By the way, the commie-pinko-radical-left position in Kansas, apparently, is in favor of "abstinence plus.")

No comments: