CA School refuses to release student to have abortion...

[bliss_eternal]

...without parental permission. :grr::mad: Full story (excerpt)below:

Voice of San Diego
San Diego Unified Defies State on Abortion
Vladimir Kogan, Voice Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 24, 2007

For the past three years, officials at the San Diego Unified School District's have chosen to defy the state's top law enforcer by refusing to give underage students permission to leave campus to have an abortion without notifying their parents.


That decision is just one aspect of a two-decade-old school board policy that district staff admits conflicts with state laws. Adopted in 1988, the policy requires school employees, including nurses and counselors, to notify parents when they learn that a student is pregnant or is mulling an abortion.

Critics of the requirement, both inside and outside of the district, say that the policy flouts a 2004 opinion by the state's attorney general, which concluded that districts cannot require parental notification before allowing students to leave school for certain confidential reproductive services. They also warn that it threatens the confidential relationship between patients and their physical or mental health professionals -- even if they do happen to be employees of a school. Some of these professionals say they're actively disobeying the policy.

"A lot of times, California law is in conflict with school policy and procedures, and a lot of it is because the issues are not black and white. There is a lot of gray area," said Marge Kleinsmith, a resource teacher and the head of the district's sex education program.

District officials say they have no idea how many students have been affected by the policy, nor the extent to which it is enforced on individual school campuses. Kleinsmith, for example, said she wasn't even aware that the policy covered abortion until she was contacted by Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside Counties, one of several groups that reviewed the policy at the request of voiceofsandiego.org last week.

--------------------------------------snip----------------------------------------------------------

taken from:

http://www.prochoicecalifornia.org/news/headlines/200704241.shtml

Highlights of issue as layed out by Voice of San Diego:

The Issue: The San Diego Unified School District continues to flout a 2004 opinion from the state attorney general concluding that students have the right to leave school for reproductive health services without telling their parents.
What It Means: Under the district's 20-year-old policy, school personnel must notify parents when they learn that a student is pregnant or is considering an abortion.
The Bigger Picture: School counselors, some openly disobeying the policy, say it pits their professional loyalties against the district's orders.

Critics of the requirement, both inside and outside of the district, say that the policy flouts a 2004 opinion by the state's attorney general, which concluded that districts cannot require parental notification before allowing students to leave school for certain confidential reproductive services. They also warn that it threatens the confidential relationship between patients and their physical or mental health professionals -- even if they do happen to be employees of a school. Some of these professionals say they're actively disobeying the policy.

"A lot of times, California law is in conflict with school policy and procedures, and a lot of it is because the issues are not black and white. There is a lot of gray area," said Marge Kleinsmith, a resource teacher and the head of the district's sex education program.

taken from:
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2007/04/24/news/01abortion042407.txt

[MountainLaurel]

1. Incredible.

:cry:

[ismnotwasm]

2. Disgusting

Encouraging young women to lie, feel guilty, lose the feeling of autonomy of their own bodies. Perhaps to the point of putting off a necessary and private medical procedure, or not turning to medical personal at the school in the first place, interfering with the reason they're there in the first place. And for what? Political bullshit.

[bliss_eternal]

3. This is exactly why the parental notification bill

was so dangerous. :scared: Too many want to assume that everyone belongs to a family where they can "discuss" issues--including sexuality. This is NOT the case. The most seemingly functional family unit is capable of being completely unsupportive and abusive when it comes to a young woman's expression of sexuality.