A New Hampshire teacher has been fired after secretly accompanying a pregnant student with special needs to an abortion clinic.
The female teacher, who has not been named to protect the student’s identity, admitted to her employer that she had faked a sick day for the mission.
She told staff she had food poisoning but instead took a student to the medical facility, court documents show.
According to the Boston Globe, the teacher worked for Regional Services and Education Center Inc, a nonprofit organization based in Amherst.
The facility serves grades five through 12 with special needs and disabilities at various schools in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, but it is unclear how old the student is.
A New Hampshire teacher has been fired after it was revealed she secretly accompanied a pregnant student with special needs to an abortion clinic. (Pictured: an entrance to one of the schools of the umbrella institution where the woman worked)
It comes after New Hampshire Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut made the accusation in an op-ed he wrote in April called “Thank God someone is watching the kids‘.
Exposing a litany of issues in the school system, he wondered “should we turn a blind eye” when “a teacher lies by calling in sick so he can take a student – without the parents’ knowledge – for an abortion?’
He also mentioned “school counselors who encourage students to change gender without a parent involved” and a “mentor teacher who drinks on the job,” while “other teachers turn a blind eye.”
Edelblut is a former Republican candidate for governor who expressed disappointment last year over the defeat of “parenting rights” legislation, which would have led to greater transparency for parents about what happens in schools.
State officials have opened an investigation into the teacher’s alleged failure to separate students’ personal lives from her role as a classroom educator.
Abortion is legal in New Hampshire until 23 weeks and six days into pregnancy. There is no evidence that the abortion in this case was illegal.
It comes after New Hampshire Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut (pictured) made the accusation in an op-ed he wrote in April titled “Thank God Someone’s Watching the Kids.”
Court documents show the teacher involved told investigators she helped the student “determine how far along they were” so they “knew what options were available to them.”
She found a ‘safe’ place for the procedure and discussed this with the student before offering to go along as they ‘didn’t have anyone to support them’.
But when her employers found out, she was placed on administrative leave for the remainder of her employment contract, after which her role would end.
Letters to the teacher from the New Hampshire State Education Department show that they accuse her of “failing to properly supervise and adhere to ethical standards regarding student boundary protocols with a student under your guard’.
The school has been offering special education for more than 40 years.
The female teacher, who has not been named to protect the student’s identity, admitted to her employer that she had faked a sick day for the mission. (Photo: one of the schools of the umbrella institution where the woman worked)
It comes at a time when the number of abortions is at its highest level in a decade, despite bans on the procedure in more than a dozen states.
A report released in March 2024 by a reproductive health care company Guttmacher Institute showed that there would be 1 million abortions in the US in 2023, the equivalent of 16 per 1,000 women.
That was 10 percent more than the 14.4 per 1,000 in 2020 and the highest since 2014, when the figure was 14.6 per 1,000.
The increase is largely driven by medical abortions, which can be ordered online from pharmacies and will soon be ordered in person, although they are illegal in more than a dozen states that have banned abortion.