It is undeniable that a conservative resurgence is currently active in America and concentrating efforts on a women’s right to privacy and abortion. Although media focus is on Georgia and Alabama, the recent protest activity by D.C. Area Anti-Abortion Advocacy (a.k.a. DC4A) occurring outside of D.C. area middle and high schools, including James Madison High School, is a prime example of how quasi-political interest groups are affecting our community.
Pro-Life activism is protected through civil rights and liberties within the United States and public high schools; students can organize clubs, write academic and newspaper arguments, invite speakers, and hold discussions to convey their beliefs on abortion. The Equal Access Act, a federal law compelling secondary schools with federal funding to allow non-curricular student organizations, ensures these entitlements. But, the protestors from DC4A are different; the adult volunteers shout through bull-horns at students exiting school, hold up photos of severed fetuses, and approach students to video their responses on why they want to “kill babies.” Then, to satisfy their extremist internet following, DC4A posts these videos onto their Facebook and Youtube to rile members by saying that the students “insult the murdered babies.”
Ultimately, I think what this DC4A does is horrendous. Through means of intimidation, DC4A preys on the young members of our community when they are unaccompanied and most vulnerable, overwhelms them with their political agenda, and finishes them off by malforming and exposing their identities on the internet. Furthermore, DC4A’s line of questioning and confrontational nature is intended to traumatize adolescents into believing that their immorality is the source of the perceived problem, causing them to distrust and silence their own opinions. However, most imminently, DC4A negatively exhibits the students' identities to a radical viewership -- creating a major safety concern.
The state and local legislatures need to do more to protect minors from predator political groups; although it is legal for minors to be recorded without their consent, it is permissible for states and municipalities to make laws regulating photographing minors on school grounds. The legislature of the Commonwealth of Virginia needs to act quickly to protect students’ well-being and identities from groups who are willing to leverage them for a political following. I call upon the Virginia General Assembly to make it illegal for non-school entities to share identity - exposing videos of minors on school grounds without their consent, even if the video camera itself is not on campus grounds.
Grace Kugler
Vienna