Arizona School Board Aborts Pages From Biology Textbook

Rest easy, innocent children of Gilbert, Arizona: You won't have to worry about being corrupted by your biology textbooks anymore! The Gilbert School Board voted Tuesday to remove a page from the high school's honors biology textbook, because they were worried it might be in violation of an Arizona law requiring that all instructional materials promote "childbirth or adoption" instead of abortion.

You see, the page in question has one whole sentence that mentions the abortion pill, and even worse, it discusses emergency contraception, which is exactly like an abortion except for how it isn't an abortion at all, except lots of wingnuts have a sincerely held belief that it is. Clear enough? Gotta teach science right.

An Arizona law passed in 2012 is quite clear on why the X-Acto Knives must be taken to the textbook:

In view of the state's strong interest in promoting childbirth and adoption over elective abortion, no school district or charter school in this state may allow any presentation during instructional time or furnish any materials to pupils as part of any instruction that does not give preference, encouragement and support to childbirth and adoption as preferred options to elective abortion.

And by golly, a Concerned Parent called up a board member to complain about the textbook, Campbell Biology: Concepts & Connections because page 547 is just loaded with slut pills. Oh, sure the page starts with a note that "Complete abstinence (avoiding intercourse) is the only totally effective method of birth control," but just look at the outrageous pro-abortion propaganda in the final paragraph of the section:

Now, even though the Arizona Department of Education and the school's lawyer said in September that the passage wasn't in violation of the law -- it says that Mifepristone exists, but it doesn't recommend it or say "go kill your babby and become a witch" -- the school voted 3-2 to remove the entire page. But it is definitely not censorship, says board member Julie Smith:

"By redacting, we are not censoring," she said. "This school district does offer sexual education classes. If we were censoring we would not offer anything on this topic whatsoever."

See? It's not censorship if you remove something, as long as you replace it with something else. That is just Logic.

Even better, board President Stacy Bunk said that several parents had already volunteered to help remove or redact the offending pages, which is certainly a happy thought. Can't you just see the decent church-going parents with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces, taking up Sharpies or razors to fix those terrible, terrible books that don't tell children about their sacred duty to give birth?

[ Arizona Republic / AzCentral.com ]