NEW HAMPSHIRE— A private school teacher says she was fired because she drove a student who was 18 years old to get an abortion. She is now suing the New Hampshire Department of Education and officials she says told her she broke the law when they weren’t telling the truth.
Parents in New Hampshire must be given written notice at least 48 hours before an abortion is done on a child who is not yet an adult. The claim that was filed Monday says that the student wasn’t living with her parents and was a legal adult.
The teacher, who filed the suit as “Jane Doe,” said she gave the student the number for a community health center when she told her she thought she might be pregnant last fall and then drove her to her appointment in October. Within days, the school fired her and took the case to the Department of Education, which earlier this month took away her license to teach.
The lawsuit says that the department went beyond what it was allowed to do and violated her rights to due process by taking away her credentials without an open and impartial process. It also says that Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut spread a false story about her behavior in an April opinion piece.
The article, called “Thank God Someone is Looking Out for the Children,” came out after negative news stories about the commissioner on New Hampshire Public Radio. He asked the department in a roundabout way if they should “turn a blind eye” when “allegedly, an educator lies by calling in sick so they can take a student – without parental knowledge – to get an abortion.”
The lawsuit says that department officials knew for months before the essay came out that the student in question was an adult and not subject to the rule that requires parental notification.
A department spokesperson, Kimberly Houghton, wouldn’t say anything about the investigation into the teacher and told reporters to ask the attorney general’s office about the case. A spokesman for that agency, Michael Garrity, said on Wednesday that officials are looking into it and will react as soon as possible. When asked for comment, the teacher’s lawyers did not reply right away.
The Boston Globe was the first to report that the teacher had been fired. They did this by using information they got from the Education Department for an investigation. The lawsuit said that the department’s “biased and stilted disclosure” of information that should have stayed private until the case was over led to a false story that hurt the teacher’s image and put her in danger.
The teacher has a meeting on July 3, which is five days before she starts her new job.
Source: AP
