KY Repug Senators Aid and Abet Child Abuse
That headline is a gross understatement, by the way. Repug senators in the Kentucky general assembly just announced to the world that parents who abuse their children should be allowed to take their children out of school to hide that abuse.
Not. Even. Kidding.
From John Cheves at the Herald:
The Republican Senate majority won’t hear a bill that would require abused or neglected children to remain enrolled in school because it doesn’t wish to get involved in the sensitive subject of home-schooling, a key senator said Wednesday.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Whitney Westerfield, R-Hopkinsville, said his committee won’t give a hearing to Senate Bill 181. Under the bill, parents who have a substantiated instance of child abuse or neglect on their record would not be allowed to remove their children from public school without court approval.
“There is some resistance on it,” Westerfield said. “I’ve spoken to people, and I don’t think it has the votes to get out. Members of the Senate have concerns about getting into home-schooling.”
In a fiery 13-minute speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, the bill’s sponsor, Senate Democratic Leader Ray Jones of Pikeville, criticized GOP senators for calling themselves “pro life” while refusing to hear a proposal that could protect children from being isolated at home, without witnesses, and fatally abused.
Jones filed his bill after reading in the Herald-Leader last month about an 8-year-old Berea girl who was tortured nearly to death by her father and his girlfriend. The father withdrew the girl from her elementary school, falsely claiming that he would home-school her, after school employees reported the girl’s injuries to social workers.
“When you no longer have principals and teachers and school nurses and others involved in the child’s life, this kind of abuse can easily be shielded,” Jones said. “You say that you’re a pro life chamber, that you’re a pro life party, and yet even a simple bill to protect the lives of innocent children like this 8-year-old little girl can’t get a hearing.”
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