Arizona Public Schools Should Not Be Defacing Science Books With These Anti-Choice Stickers

When I was in school, defacing our textbooks with doodles or stickers would get us charged $80 or so, but now one Arizona school district has actually started producing anti-choice, pro-abstinence, “don’t bother us, ask your parents” stickers for students to put in their science textbooks.

According to Jezebel, author Suzanne Young discovered the existence of the stickers when her son showed them to her.

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Young said her son showed up with a biology textbook and said, “You’re going to want to see this.” Young stared aghast at the sticker as her son told her that all the students had to stick them in their books. If they refuse to put these stickers in their books, they get in trouble.

The Gilbert Public School District last year reportedly voted to remove a section of a textbook for an honors biology class for daring to suggest that contraception could prevent pregnancy. Contraception can prevent pregnancy. It’s not 100-percent effective, but it’s pretty darn effective, and it’s a hell of a lot more effective than having sex without contraception.

And now the District has apparently got itself a sticker machine and is going to just sticker up the place with its anti-abortion, pro-abstinence stickers. This is a hideous move for a public school, especially since–according to Jezebel–Arizona ranks second in the U.S. for teen pregnancies, which reportedly cost the state $252 million a year. And even if you are a fan of teaching abstinence in schools, why science class? How is this science? “Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, and also God will smite you if you have premarital sex.”

I went to a Catholic high school, and they were way better about this stuff than this Arizona public school. My school might have had a right-to-llfe club and had elderly algebra teachers who occasionally went on anti-abortion rants in the middle of lectures about the quadratic equation, but they definitely covered condoms and birth control pills and even morning-after pills in science class.

Students who do not put the stickers in their books have to speak to their grade administrators about their refusal. That’s a tough position to put a kid in. “Put this weird anti-abortion sticker in your science book, or meet with an adult who gives you grades and explain why you won’t just shut up and do what we say.”

The school should back off, teach actual science in science class, and leave any anti-choice propaganda to the parents.

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