Re: School policy forces students to take pregnancy tests, bans pregnant teens
The article doesn't say they can't come back once they finish the pregnancy.
Hadn't suggested it did. Not sure how that relates...
Perhaps they feel like a pregnant child is not able to have the attendance needed to ensure their education needs are met.
Can a pregnant child not get on a bus or a parents car and ride to school? If this was the actual worry, why would it not be that there is an OPTION to undertake classes at home instead of at school rather than it being mandatory? Or even perhaps have it be something that occurs IF attendance issues begin to show, not simply assuming they will.
Preganent students could be a distraction. Other students could be influenced by her and her decisions. I am sure there is more than what I listed.
So the basis for disallowing an individual to continue to attend in-class room education is because it is automatically assumed they will be a distraction if pregnant...even at points where it would not be known to anyone else if not for a pregnancy test?
Do they refuse to allow any kid that tells jokes from attending in-class room education because class clowsn are a distraction and we can just assume if one tells jokes that they'll likely fool around during class? What other "distractoins" have this similar reaction from the school PRIOR to the actual distraction occuring? If there's no such things, it's not really a legitimate argument.
But the bottom line is a student being pregnant could negatively effect her education, and the education and choices of those around her.
*COULD*. Know what else *COULD*? Not allowing her to participate in actual in-class education. And there are many things that could potentially negative effect the education of those around them...are there other such legal things that an individual is punished for prior to actually causing negative effects at the school? If not, then again...this doesn't seem like it can be the reasoning or if it is, it's still standing out as potential wrongful discrimination due to the extremely unequal application of the standard.
Would you have a problem with people not attending the school who were on trial for breaking the law or make other poor life choices that would or could potentially adversely effect their education and those around them? Would you want your teenage son or daughter being influenced by people making these types of decisions if you had the option?
You'd need to present me an analogy where there's similar discrimination occuring in terms of unequal application of the law to a protected class under the EPC for me to be able to ansewr you.
Now, if say...they had a rule that BOYS involved in breaking the law could not attend school because of hte potential adverse effect on education it has, but girls who broke the law could...then yeah, I'd definitely have an issue.
But just in a general sense, if getting public funding, unless the violation was actually on school grounds or during school hours, the simple fact that the kid is possibly going to have to go on trial for a crime isn't something I think they should probably get suspended for. But I can't speak to the constitutionality of that becaues it's not nearly as clear cut as an incident in this case where the application of the standard
clearly singles out a particular race/sex/religion/etc.
As to your emotional plea at the end about my "teenage son or daughter", sorry...that's irrelevant to me. We're not talking about if it's understandable that someone wants this rule, we're talking about if it's legal. I reject it when the right plays the Lovejoy "WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN" card and I reject it when the Left plays the "WE SHOULD DO IT BECUASE ITS 'GOOD'" argument. We have a system of government of laws and attempting to contort, ignore, or add to the laws based singularly on a notion of what's "good" or what we'd personally want for our own desires is unwise and has largely contributed to the troubles this country has current imho.
I have no issue in theory with a policy that attempts to create further tangable, immediete, consequences for something like sex or pregnancy as a teenager due to the limited ability kids and teens tend to have to be able to truly look at and grasp the severity of the long term effects of those things and thus SHORT term consequences could potentially be beneficial. At the same time however, such things need to be lawful and constitutional because if they are not...even if they may be a good idea in and of themselves...it establishes legal precedence for incidents that you may not like so much.
This is a school taking public funding putting forward a rule in which whatever motivation they have for it, it would appear to be an unequal application of that principle, and one in which an unquestionably disproportionate portion of a protected class (in this case gender) appears to be singled out for action. That's problematic under the law and to the precedence it sets constitutionally.
