Station:    KVOR, 740 am

Show:       Jeff Crank Show

Guests:    Lundeen

Link:        https://soundcloud.com/user-213438850/tracks

Date:       May 4, 2019

Topics:     Comprehensive Human Sexuality Education, House Bill 1032, Abstinence, Pregnancy Outcomes, Abortion, Adoption, Curriculum, Sonograms, Ultrasounds,

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CRANK [00:00:00] Yeah. How about House bill 1032?  It’s one you and I talked about before with our listeners.  It’s a sex education bill.

LUNDEEN [00:00:07] Yeah absolutely. We had several categories:   bad bills that got through –and we’ve talked about a few of those, bad bills and we got stopped, and bad bills that we got amended. [HB] 1032 falls into that category.  But 1032, the Comprehensive Human Sexuality Education bill, even as amended, was a clear ‘no’ vote and I was in the well arguing against it even as late as third reading yesterday. It does a couple of things. And let me just frame it this way:  it was a 27-page terrible bill! It was a state wide curriculum which violates our principles of local control. It violates the ability of the 178 school districts to set the curriculum themselves. So we got rid of many elements of that. However, the bill as it’s been passed and as it will likely become the law, still says things that I think are incorrect. It does not allow districts to teach abstinence, and there was federal money that was flowing into the state to help support the teaching of abstinence. That money is all cut off and the ability to teach abstinence has been removed. You can’t —  under the law, it says that you may not, shall not emphasize abstinence as the primary or sole acceptable preventive method available to students.  And abstinence, of course, is just risk avoidance.  But potentially the most offensive piece that remains in the bill is language that gives a moral equivalency to multiple different pregnancy outcomes. And of course, in my mind, the logical outcome to a pregnancy is the birth of a healthy human child and perhaps an adoption. But the bill, as it says, is “however a public school opts to provide instruction on pregnancy outcomes, the instruction must cover all pregnancy options, including but not limited to adoption, abortion, parenting, and information concerning…” And so on. But so, it gives a moral equivalency between adoption and abortion. And that’s a challenge for many of us. And that’s in the bill. So, it’s one where amended made significant improvements. But it’s still a very challenging bill as it’s headed to the governor’s desk to become law.

CRANK [00:02:14] Yes. So why, —  if we’re going to if they want to talk about all those things, why don’t they mandate the showing of an abortion procedure in classes?

LUNDEEN [00:02:24] Right. And that’s — quite frankly, that’s where I believe, as we have public communication and discourse and debate, things like that — the ability of ultrasounds for people to see the human child in utero — are the sorts of things that really help us all understand more clearly than total set of realities. I mean, that’s part of I think the ongoing conversation. I’m not big on mandating from the state level anything in terms of curriculum, because I just think that’s intrusive. The lighter touch that the government carries, the better.  And to keep those sorts of curricular types of discussions more local is important. but generally, in public, I mean, we’re all seeing, because of the advances of technology — things like ultrasounds and sonograms that really help people understand my perspective, which is that that’s a child just the child is in utero.

CRANK [00:03:17] It’s not just your perspective, Paul.  It’s God’s perspective, and it is reality. I mean, let’s just be honest. We all know it. And anybody who doesn’t believe that is just fooling themselves, that you know, it’s a glob of cells or whatever.

LUNDEEN [00:03:28] Absolutely. Exactly. And I frame it that way, because I always try to — when I’m in public debate, I try and draw everyone into the debate. So that’s kind of the way I [unintelligible].

CRANK [00:03:40] No, I understand. I gotcha. I gotcha. And you’ve been great on that issue and so many others.