School District Puts Anti-Abortion Stickers on Textbooks

School District Puts Anti-Abortion Stickers on Textbooks

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The label is a result of an effort by a religious group and several board members to "present childbirth and adoption as preferred options to elective abortion" in biology textbooks, AZ Central reported last year. They defended the stance by citing state laws that say schools must encourage childbirth or adoption over abortion. In December, the board decided against all-out editing of the textbooks, however, after Superintendent Dr. Christina M. Kishimoto​ raised concerns about potential copyright violations and pointed out how much effort and time it would take to manually edit the books.

According to NARAL, pretty much the entire Arizona state government is anti-choice. It was the first state to pass a controversial law obligating doctors to inform patients that medication abortions are reversible, though there's no credible evidence to support that claim. (The law is now on hold.) Arizona also has a number of regulations that attempt to discourage women to get abortions, including that a woman must receive an ultrasound 24 hours before the procedure, and that she must have in-person counseling session at least 24 hours in advance of the procedure. This means that a woman will have to make at least two trips to the facility.

Irene Mahoney-Paige, the district's director of communication, told Cosmopolitan.com via email that "stickers were given to the department chairs, some schools have students putting the stickers on while other schools have students turning their books into the bookstore manager who is then putting the stickers on. The stickers are going on the inside of the back cover of all Biology books." She said, though, that "there is no punishment if students do not use the sticker."

Read more: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a45170/arizona-textbook-abstinence/