Right-Wing lawmakers are attempting to pack the Elementary and Secondary Education Act with anti-abortion and anti-gay amendments. Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) has offered two anti-abortion amendments – one requiring parental consent for the distribution of emergency contraception in school-based health centers, the other eliminating funding to any school that offers emergency contraception (the “morning after pill”) to students. A coalition of health care organizations including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Public Health Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, has sent a letter to US senators urging them to oppose the parental consent amendment. Helms has also proposed an anti-gay amendment that would ban funding to US schools that refuse to offer facilities to Boy Scout troops because of their anti-gay policies (More: https://feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=1413). The Human Rights Campaign, while criticizing the measure, points out that federal law already mandates equal access to school facilities for Boy Scout troops.
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