Bill to ban Planned Parenthood from teaching health in Utah schools advances, despite broad language concerns

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — A bill to block Planned Parenthood from teaching health classes in public schools is close to passing the Utah Legislature, despite concerns from opponents regarding its broad language.

Opponents say the language of the bill is broad enough that it could block large hospital system employees — like the University of Utah or Intermountain Health — from teaching those school health programs.

HB 233, being run by Nicholeen Peck (R – Tooele), blocks districts from “allowing entities that perform elective abortions” — like Planned Parenthood — “to provide health-related instruction or materials in public schools.”

But critics worry the bill’s language could encompass and ban trained health educators who work for the U of U at places like Primary Children’s Hospital or Intermountain Health, who also may provide abortions and teach maturation or health-related curriculums.

“When I reached out to the bill drafters, they did confirm to me that that was the case,” Sen. Jen Plumb (D – Salt Lake City) said during Monday’s Senate Health and Human Services Committee hearing.

“These are some of our most dedicated, knowledgeable, pediatric folks in these huge systems, and so I wonder… how you would think about that — that we’d be eliminating that pool of educators,” Plumb asked the Peck to explain.

Peck responded that the bill was not intended to do that, but rather it was meant to target those who perform “elective” abortions.

“A hospital is not an elective abortion provider,” Peck said. “A hospital might perform something that might be termed an abortion like a procedure… but it wouldn’t be a place where a woman would just walk in and say, ‘I want to have an abortion today.'”

However, the bill does not define what constitutes an “elective abortion provider,” meaning it could be interpreted to apply to any group who provides any type of abortion, whether medical or elective.

Plumb gave the example of a child who may be pregnant as a result of rape, who may need to go to the hospital to receive specialized abortion care, which is allowed under Utah law.

Plumb argued that the language could accidentally eliminate the potential for all those health professionals who worked at the hospital to teach in schools. Peck disagreed.

“Any medical professional that is not funded by an elective abortion provider is going to be allowed to teach,” Peck said.

Sen. Daniel Thatcher (R – West Valley) also voiced concerns, saying he is “not a fan” of abortion or Planned Parenthood, but he agreed there was a “huge challenge” with the language as written.

“If we’re trying to make it so that (Planned Parenthood) can’t provide maturation curriculum, but the language we use is that we say, ‘anyone that performs elective abortions,” then it’s not restricted to just Planned Parenthood,” he said before voting not to move the bill forward.

The bill’s language reads as follows:

“(A district) may not allow an entity employee, representative, or affiliate that performs elective abortions or provides debranded maturation curriculum to:

• deliver instruction or programs on all health or health-related topics in a school that receives state funding;
• provide materials or media on a health topic for distribution or display in a school that receives state funding, if the materials or media are created by, funded by, donated by, or bear the identifying mark of the entity or the entity’s affiliate.”

Despite the concerns, the bill narrowly passed the Senate committee 4-3, sending it to the full body. It has already passed the House and awaits its final votes before heading to the Governor’s desk.