WILL ADMINISTRATORS SUPPORT THEIR FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS?
Pro-life students at Service High School in Anchorage say they will walk out of school at 10 am on Wednesday, “to protest the injustice of abortion, to call for support for student mothers, and to oppose the targeting of preborn babies by Planned Parenthood.”
The students will join others from across the country in a student-initiated walkout to exercise their First Amendment rights. It’s not known how many students plan to participate.
After the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shootings on Feb. 14, school districts across the country allowed students to protest gun violence without facing disciplinary sanctions. In Anchorage, students at West and Service High Schools walked out of classes to commemorate the students who perished in the massacre and to advocate for stricter gun laws. Hundreds took part across Alaska.
School districts in Alaska supported the student walkouts in March, and the governor and lieutenant governor gave official support to the walk out by attending it in Juneau.
But some citizens ask if districts have set a difficult precedent, which may be tested by other walkouts.
Another anti-gun-related national student walkout is planned for Friday, April 20, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine, Colorado school shooting. The event has support from the national “Indivisible” group that has fomented unrest across the country around liberal causes. The group was formed to disrupt the Trump presidency.
The pro-life event on Wednesday is also student-driven, but is likely to be more modest than the national protests against Second Amendment gun rights. The pro-life walkout started in Sacramento, Calif. after a high school history teacher was suspended for suggesting that administrators would have a different standard for tolerating a pro-life walkout than the gun violence walkout.
“I just want to spread awareness about the cruel things that are happening in Planned Parenthood clinics across the country, the cruel murder of these children who have done nothing wrong,” said Brandon Gillespie, the student who organized the Sacramento walkout.
Missing from the halls of today’s high schools is one fourth of this generation. And to make matters worse, so much tax money is wasted on the abortion industry. Planned Parenthood alone receives more than half-a-billion a year in taxpayer subsidies. – Students for Life of America.
On Wednesday, participants will speak against the violence of abortion, “to remember those we are missing, to pledge to help pregnant and parenting students, and to demand that our elected officials defund Planned Parenthood once and for all.”
Planned Parenthood performed an abortion every 98 seconds in 2016, according Live Action, a pro-life group, but in Anchorage, Planned Parenthood is part of the curriculum in the schools, where the group gets early access to students to familiarize them with all their services, including testing for sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy testing.
Students interested in learning about resources available to host a #prolifewalkout at their school can go to prolifewalkout.org to be connected to Students for Life of America, which supports the student-lead effort with sample promotional flyers, press releases, and legal advice about first amendment rights, according to a spokesman for the group.
To contact Students for Life of America in Fredricksburg, Va., check with [email protected], or Matt Lamb [email protected].
