Community outraged over private school field trip to abortion clinic

Published: 2006-10-16

PHILADELPHIA (CNS) -- Community outrage is growing over a field trip to an abortion clinic that was sponsored by the Solebury School in New Hope, near Philadelphia. More than a dozen teenagers from the private school were bused to the Planned Parenthood clinic in Warminster, where they spent several hours inside the clinic and even donned the vests worn by escorts who meet and accompany women coming for abortions. According to Jason Gordon, the social science teacher who accompanied the students, the trip was part of an "activism" class. With a group of pro-life demonstrators staging a peaceful prayer service at the curb less than 20 feet away, it might have been a powerful lesson, except for one thing: The students were only allowed to hear one side of the story. "We tried to encourage them to come down and talk to us, to at least hear the other side of the story, but they weren't allowed," Eileen Stone, a parishioner from St. Andrew Parish in Newtown, told The Catholic Standard & Times, newspaper of the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .