By Gudrun Schultz
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.”Â
“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:
https://www.cst-phl.com/061005/second.html