First—
The current bill that’s gone through both the house and senate (SB 489) to change graduation requirements is going to drastically mangle the state’s independent special education facilities. They simply do not and cannot have the resources to offer these additional required courses. Furthermore, the increased requirements as a result of the dismantling of the modified standard diploma will increase the drop-out rate among special education students—a result entirely out of line with your Republican party’s commitment to ‘leave no child behind.’

Second—
The bill under consideration to require transvaginal sonograms for women seeking abortions is making my home state a national embarrassment. Would you please for a second consider what it would mean for a rape victim to be told that the only way she can get rid of her rapist’s baby is to have another random stranger stick a foreign object inside of her?

Thirdly—
The new criteria for adoption are nonsensical and would not even pass the smell test at the bottom-most courts, let alone the supreme court. Time and again discrimination with respect to adoption has gone to the courts and lost, in a variety of cases which all cover the different stipulations in this bill. One might wonder what precisely you hope to establish with this bill considering how easily it will be struck down. Are you just trying to establish your GOP bona fides for November by attempting to move to the right of the current presidential field? I assure you, there is nothing to the right of them, nor could there be. Even if this bill does stand, all it can do is increase the number of children in foster care waiting for adoption. Foster care is a living hell—I know because I work with children who are ruined by it on a daily basis. The enormity of your condemnation of these innocent children is beyond my ability to articulate.

These three bills—one to mangle the education system in place for special needs children, one to violate women in order to convince them to bring children into the world that they cannot support, and one to make life more difficult for those children who are put up for adoption—leave me with only one possible conclusion: you must hate children with a burning passion.

Take care and have a wonderful spring!