Posted on 10/17/2006 5:00:24 PM PDT by wagglebee
NEW HOPE, Pennsylvania, October 17, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The National Pro-Life Action Center (NPLAC) in Washinton D.C. is calling for an investigation after a private school sponsored a field trip to a nearby abortuary, triggering outrage in the local community.
More than a dozen high school students from Solebury School, near Philadelphia, were taken by bus to the Planned Parenthood location in Warminster, Catholic News Service reported, where they spent several hours touring the clinic. According to CNS the students wore vests used by abortion staff when escorting women into the building.
Jason Gordon, social science teacher for the school and the trip organizer, said the outing was part of an “activism class.”
“This is outrageous,” said attorney Stephen G. Peroutka, chairman of NPLAC. “Why would somebody take children out of school and to an abortion business? Why would anybody think that was good for kids? Whoever did--shouldn’t be teaching, and the school should be investigated and the administrator fired.”
Pro-Life demonstrators who were conducting a prayer service outside the Planned Parenthood building at the time said the students were not allowed to talk to them.
“We tried to encourage them to come down and talk to us, to at least hear the other side of the story, but they weren’t allowed,” Eileen Stone, a prayer service participant, told the Catholic Standard & Times, newspaper of the Philadelphia Archdiocese.
“This is very, very disturbing,” Stone said. “These students are only seeing one side. Shouldn’t they see another perspective? After all, education is about seeing the whole picture.”
Gordon said the students weren’t permitted to speak with the pro-life demonstrators because he did not want them to become involved in activism--he denied that the student’s participation in the abortuary activities was itself a form of activism. When asked by the Times if he had ensured students were given both sides of the argument, he admitted he had not.
“I wouldn’t say it was necessarily both sides,” Gordon said. “I don’t want to polarize things by saying this is one side and that’s another. The opposite of pro-choice is anti-choice. The opposite of pro-life is anti-life. If they say they’re pro-life, I can say I agree with people living. I’m not for people dying. But I’m also for people having a choice. I’m not for people not having a choice to do what they want.”
Escorts at the facility began playing a radio to drown out the pro-life demonstration and openly mocked the demonstrators in front of the students, participants told the Times.
“It’s so irresponsible for adults to act like this in front of kids,” Stone said. “And I think it’s very irresponsible for the administrator of any school to send children here to be brainwashed.”
Dr. Paul Chaim Schenck, executive director of NPLAC, said the incident shows just how badly legislation is needed to protect minor children from abortion activism.
“A school excursion into the bowels of an abortion mill is a stark illustration of why the Senate let down American families by failing to pass legislation prohibiting anyone from taking a school-aged child to an abortionist without parental consent,” said Dr. Schenck in a press release yesterday. “This was an inexplicable and inexcusable act.”
Read full coverage from The Catholic Standard & Times:
http://www.cst-phl.com/061005/second.html
Please, dumpsters are s-o-o-o last year. I'm sure they have state-of-the-art crematoria, possibly paid for with your tax dollars!
Gordon said the students weren’t permitted to speak with the pro-life demonstrators because he did not want them to become involved in activism
Well that's clear enough.
Ugh.
This is one of those "Just-when-I-thought-I'd-seen-everything" moments.
This turns my stomach.
Oh it is here, as you say, but my point was that far greater evil will come out and dance in the broad daylight (and that right soon.)
|
|||||||||
That's what i think the thinking was behind it. To show the teens the reality of what an abortion is. I don't know if I agree with it, but I don't think it was a feel good trip. I'd like to hear the school's side.
If this were my kid, Jason would be waking up about now with "Louisville Slugger" tatooed on the back of his skull.
Talk about a sick place to take the young people. If your children aren't screwed up enough, the school administrators will finish the job.
Perhaps the students were given the opportunity to view a live procedure. What a delight.
Perhaps Dr. Schenck (and everyone else) missed the part of the story which said that Solebury School is a private school. That means that the parents voluntarily placed their kids in the school (and payed a lot of money to do so) and can also remove their kids from the school if they don't approve of the school's policies.
So what business is it for the Senate to be passing legislation regulating the actions of a private school? And what business is it of outside groups to be demanding the firing of the school administrator? If the parents object to what the school administrator did, they can pressure the school to fire him under threat of withdrawing their kids and hurting the school financially.
If this was a public school, the school would be facing a justifiable uproar and probable lawsuits. But since it's a private school, all this outrage is wasted.
B. I wish the MSM would take a field trip to these places and provide film on a daily basis.
The liberals who saw Michael Moore's first piece of cinematic trash did not have the stomach for rabbit skinning which got the film an R Rating. I am sure they do not have the stomach to see an actual abortion.
An investigation by whom? On what basis? It's a private school.
Do you think as the kids left, they were told, "yall come back, now"?
Cuba has more natural resources than any other country in the Caribbean. Fifty years ago they were the most prosperous nation in the Caribbean, now they are the second poorest (after Haiti). That is where "constant revolution" got them.
Or better yet, let them fire the science teacher.
Private school. Their deal.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.