By Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D.

Less than two weeks ago, NRLC received an email from a pastor who had noted in a sermon that school kids often must have a note from their parents to be given an aspirin, but these same kids can be taken by that same school to have an abortion without their parents being notified.  A nurse reprimanded him afterwards, saying that this was not true. 

NRLC told the pastor that he was, of course, correct. And a story published today out of Seattle tragically confirms what we knew all along.

According to article from KOMOnews.com, the mother of a teen from Ballard High School in Seattle is “fuming” after finding out that a health center on the school campus helped arrange for her daughter to have an abortion during school hours.  The girl was given a pass, put in a taxi, and sent off to the clinic without her family knowing of or explicitly consenting to the abortion

Though the school had a signed consent form on file that the mother believed would allow her 15-year-old daughter to get a sports physical, treatment for an earache, or even birth control, the mother never thought this would include abortion.  “She took a pregnancy test at school at the teen health center,” said the mother, identified only as “Jill.”

“Nowhere in this paperwork does it mention abortion or facilitating abortion,” Jill says, according to the television station.

The mother added, “They just told her that if she concealed it from her family, that it would be free of charge and no financial responsibility.”

The Seattle School District doesn’t directly run the school health centers, but defends the center’s actions.  T.J. Cosgrove, the King County Health Department’s administrator for school based programs, tells KOMOnews.com that while he thinks it best that parents be involved in the health care of their children. The newspaper characterizes this as parents “don’t always have a say.”

Cosgrove told the station, “At any age in the state of Washington, an individual can consent to a termination of pregnancy.”

When there are no parental involvement laws in place, or the laws are poorly crafted to allow the consent of any adult, including the abortionist, this sort of thing can and, as we see here, does happen.

The Swedish Medical Center, which runs the student health center at Ballard High, “protects the students’ privacy,” KOMOnews says.

KOMOnews does not say how or when the mother found out.  It does quote Jill as saying, “Makes me feel like my rights were completely stripped away.”

When a lot of people think about parental involvement laws, they think of what happens at the abortion clinic.  But without those laws in place, administrators, teachers, and school nurses can also thwart the will, wishes, and concerns of the parents, substituting their own judgment about whether abortion is in a child’s best interest for judgment of the parents who loved, raised, and are ultimately responsible for that’s child’s welfare.

So, yes, pastor, it does happen. And it will keep happening until the laws change and the rights of parents, children, and the unborn are fully respected.