Arizona school district adds abstinence-only, anti-choice sticker to science textbook

In Arizona, public schools do not have to teach sex education but if they do, they are required by law to stress abstinence. Another state law passed a few years ago requires that public school programs “present childbirth and adoption as preferred options to elective abortion.” 

Last year, the conservative Gilbert School District decided that to fully compile with the law they should probably censor the parts of the high school honors biology textbook that mention contraception and abortion. Because we all know that mentioning the fact of the existence of something amounts to promoting it. They seem to have dropped their original plan to literally just rip out those pages, and instead are handing out these stickers and requiring students to put them on the inside cover of their book as a little reminder of the state’s values.

This. THIS is a sticker my son’s public high school just forced all students to put in their science books: pic.twitter.com/MmVM1xu0Xf

— Suzanne Young (@suzanne_young) August 19, 2015

Translation: “We believe in withholding information on how to prevent unintended pregnancies from you. We believe in withholding information on how to end any unintended pregnancy you may have thanks to the fact that we have purposefully withheld information on how to prevent one. Though we are educators charged with giving you the information you need to succeed in life, we wash our hands of this matter.”