(LifeSiteNews) – A public school teacher in New Hampshire was recently fired for allegedly using sick leave to take a student for an abortion without parental consent, New Hampshire Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut recently revealed.
The NH Journal reported that details of the incident came as part of a New Hampshire Department of Education (NHDOE) investigative report that Edelblut released after first referencing it in an April op-ed responding to criticism he had received from New Hampshire Public Radio for his alleged “culture war” focus.
“How should the Department respond when educators have reached out to express concern about diversity, equity and inclusion trainings that they are required to attend, believing they may be discriminatory?” he asked at the time. “Or when educators have reached out believing that it was inappropriate for school counselors to encourage students to transition their gender without involving a parent? Or when a student teacher reports that their mentor teacher is drinking on the job and other educators turn a blind eye to the behavior? Or when, allegedly, an educator lies by calling in sick so they can take a student – without parental knowledge – to get an abortion. Should we turn a blind eye?”
That last example prompted speculation as to its veracity, which NHDOE resolved by releasing a 43-page collection of documents confirming his examples, including that an unnamed teacher at an unidentified school called in sick with food poisoning that was later determined to be a cover story for escorting an anonymous pregnant student to an abortion appointment that the teacher also helped arrange.
Edelblut declined to comment on the report,” the Journal added. “The details are scant, and no one in authority would speak to NH Journal on the record about the incident.” The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office declined to comment on whether any criminal prosecution was in the works.
“I am horrified to hear that a teacher in our New Hampshire schools felt the right way to help a pregnant student who felt unsupported in her pregnancy was to research abortion facilities and call out sick to take a student to an abortion rather than to help her speak with her parents and find support from her family,” Republican state Rep. Erica Layon responded. “By taking the rightful place of that student’s parents, this teacher denied her family the opportunity to step up and support her. Undermining families should not be taken lightly, and assuming the worst of parents is a dangerous precedent.”
Though commonly opposed by the abortion industry and its activist allies, parental involvement rules for underage abortions stop the practice from being used by sexual abusers to cover up and continue their crimes, as is often the case — sometimes with the knowledge and cooperation of Planned Parenthood staffers, as established by undercover investigations by the pro-life group Live Action.
Abortion is currently legal up to 24 weeks in New Hampshire. Abortion advocates made two attempts to put a constitutional amendment further insulating the “right” to abortion on the November ballot, but both failed to clear the state legislature in February.