LIFE and Chapstick

Doctor’s Note Required to Use Chapstick in School—Yet Abortions Available to Minors

Posted by Stacie Kuhns

Grace Karaffa

A news story has been making the rounds about a ridiculous elementary school regulation against students’ use of lip balm. A fifth-grader named Grace Karaffa requested some Chapstick while on the playground and was denied.

Eleven year-old Grace started a petition to allow Stuarts Draft Elementary School students to use the product and gained 236 signatures before testifying to the school board.
She explained, “I was told I couldn’t use it. Then later that day, they started to bleed so I asked for Chapstick again and I was told that it was against the school policy for elementary kids to have Chapstick.”

The assistant superintendent of administration for Augusta County Public Schools informed reporters that Chapstick is considered an over-the-counter medication by the school board. In Augusta County Public Schools, Chapstick may only be administered by a school nurse and only if a physician has prescribed its use.
When viewed without a national context, this may seem like a somewhat silly story about bureaucracy gone too far. However, it is outrageous and infuriating when you consider that a child may need a physician’s note to apply Chapstick — but, in 26 states and Washington, D.C., teenagers and pre-teens don’t even need parental permission to obtain an abortion.
An 11 year-old girl has to apply to her school district’s board to be able to use Chapstick on her chapped lips. Yet in some states, if an 11 year old girl wants a life-altering and potentially life-threatening surgical procedure, nobody has to know. In many other states, parents, guardians or even just a sibling or “mental health professional,” need only be informed of this child’s decision.

Photo by Jonathan Kos-Read

I’m not a parent, and I’m certainly not a lawmaker, doctor or an abortionist. But I’ve been an 11-year-old before, and I’ve known many in my life. I can say with perfect conviction and scientific backing: 11 year-olds should not be allowed to make irreversible decisions which will affect the course of their lives forever. In fact, recent studies reveal their minds aren’t even yet fully formed to understand the long-term implications of their choices.
When the conscience of a nation has turned so absolutely upside-down that something helpful is forbidden, but something absolutely harmful is accepted without a second thought, the only solution is an appeal to the Creator of the human conscience — the One who wrote His law on the hearts of men.

Join with us at Bound4LIFE, praying that Americans would be shaken from their backwardness and choose again to value the most basic of human rights: the right to life.

Editor’s note. This appeared at bound4life.com

Source: NRLC News