Textbook a Symbol in Arizona Fight Over Sex Education
教科書成為性教育戰場
By Rick Rojas

GILBERT, Arizona – The textbook, the one with the wide-eyed lemur peering off the cover, has been handed out for years to students in honors biology classes at the high schools here, offering lessons on subjects like mitosis and meiosis, photosynthesis and anatomy.
封面有隻狐猴兩眼圓睜直望過來的這本教科書，此間中學資優生物班已使用多年，提供絲分裂、減數分裂、光合作用和解剖等教學內容。

But now, the school board in this suburb of Phoenix has voted to cut or mark through two pages because they discuss sexually transmitted diseases and contraception, including mifepristone, a drug that can be used to prevent or halt a pregnancy.
但現在，這個鳳凰城郊區學校的董事會已表決刪除或塗掉其中兩頁，因為它討論性病和避孕，包括可預防或中止懷孕的藥物米非司酮。

A law passed two years ago in Arizona requires schools to teach “preference, encouragement and support to childbirth and adoption” over abortion, and the school board decided that those pages were in violation of this law – even though the Arizona Education Department, which examined the book for compliance, found that they were not.
亞利桑納州兩年前立法要求學校教導「選擇、鼓勵與支持生育和領養」而不選擇墮胎，校董會因此裁定這兩頁違法，儘管州主管當局教育廳認為並未觸法。

The controversy has turned into a referendum on the 2012 law, with supporters saying the textbook content cannot be removed fast enough and opponents objecting for a variety of reasons: technical, ethical, pedagogical. But the Gilbert school board is moving forward, trying to figure out how to remove the material despite resistance from parents, residents, the American Civil Liberties Union and even the district’s superintendent.
這爭議已演變成對2012年法律的複決，支持者認為教材早該刪了，反對者則基於技術、倫理、教育等多種理由反對。儘管家長、居民、美國公民自由聯盟，甚至區警司都反對，吉伯特校董會仍決定採取行動，設法刪除。

“It comes down to, it’s the law, and we need to be in compliance with the law,” said Julie Smith, a member of the Gilbert Public Schools governing board and also a parent who raised concerns about the book. “If people don’t like the law, they need to take it up with their state legislator.”
吉伯特公立學校理事會成員，也是對教科書內容表達關切的家長之一茱莉．史密斯說：「結論是，這是法律，我們必須守法。如果有人不喜歡這法令，須向州議員提出。」

Other people say that the school board has misinterpreted the law and that censoring the book amounts to a violation of students’ First Amendment rights – and may violate copyright law.
另有人認為校董會曲解法令，而且審查此書不啻侵害學生的第一修正案權利，並可能違反著作權法。

“The answer isn’t to redact pages from a science textbook,” said Alessandra Soler, executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Arizona. “It’s an extreme interpretation, an incorrect interpretation, and I think it sends the wrong message. More information is always going to be better.”
該州美國公民自由聯盟執行長歷珊德拉．索勒說：「刪修科學教科書中的幾頁不是答案。這是一種極端的解釋，不正確的解釋，我認為會傳遞錯誤訊息。提供更多資訊永遠比較好。」

It was at a heated meeting in October that the school board voted, 3 to 2, that the two pages from “Campbell Biology: Concepts and Connections” had to be removed. The dispute has led to fiery exchanges at board meetings, rumors about secret redacting sessions, and angry confrontations in local grocery stores. Christina M. Kishimoto, the schools superintendent in Gilbert, who started in the job just this summer, has found herself caught in the dispute. “I’m constantly getting emails about so-and-so threatening this or that,” she said. “The accusations are going back and forth. It’s a distraction. It’s upsetting families.”
校董會10月在激辯之後以3比2議決教科書「坎貝爾生物學：概念與聯結」中有兩頁必須刪除。這項爭議數度在校董 會引發舌戰，秘密舉行刪修會議的傳言滿天，當地雜貨店裡也爆發憤怒衝突。夏天剛上任的吉伯特督學克莉絲蒂娜．岸本發現自己也捲入爭端。她說「我不斷收到提出各種威脅的電子信。這些指控周而復始。這會使人分心。擾亂一些家庭。」

Abortion has been a prominent legal issue in Arizona. In January, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear a case brought by people who wanted to reinstate a state law, passed in 2012 but subsequently struck down, that barred most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. In March, a federal judge in Tucson refused to block the state’s unusually strict laws, also passed in 2012, on the use of abortion drugs.
墮胎始終是亞利桑納州一個突出的法律問題。今年1月，聯邦最高法院拒絕審理該州人民試圖恢復一項州法的案件。該法2012年通過又廢除，內容為禁止懷孕廿周後的多數墮胎。今年3月，土桑的一名聯邦法官拒絕封阻該州同樣在2012年通過、關乎墮胎藥物使用的異常嚴格法律。

Ms. Smith said she had been driving her family home from church back in January when her son told her about what was in the textbook. “I almost drove off the road,” she said.
史密斯說，今年1月兒子告訴她教科書內容時，她正開車載家人從教堂返家。她說：「我險些開到道路外去了。」

“I’m Catholic; we do not contracept,” Ms. Smith said. “It is a grave sin.”
她說：「我是天主教徒；我們不避孕。這是重大罪行。」

In August, school officials asked the Arizona Education Department for guidance. Lawyers and officials found that the material did not violate the law, as long as teachers provided context.
8月時校方向州教育廳請求指導。律師和官員發現教材並未違法，只要教師有提供背景說明。

“Just simply stating a fact, a particular drug and its function, doesn’t mean you favor that particular course of action,” said Chris Kotterman, the department’s deputy director of policy development and government relations. “That’s not how textbooks work. That’s not how any other academic exercise works.”
教育廳主管發展和政府關係的副廳長柯特曼說：「單純陳述一項事實，特定藥物和它的功能，並不意味你贊成那項特定行為。教科書不該如此看待，任何其他學術活動也都一樣。」

The law’s sponsor, State Senator Nancy Barto, Republican of Phoenix, disagreed. She argued that even a straightforward description of how drugs like mifepristone work could not be “value neutral” because it failed to promote adoption and childbirth.
該法律的發起人、鳳凰城共和黨籍州參議員南茜．巴托不同意。她堅稱，即使只是直白描述米非司酮這類藥物的作用，即已失去「價值觀的中立」，因為它並不推廣收養和生育的觀念。

Some parents expressed concern that the redactions might put students at a disadvantage when they take national exams.
有些家長擔心刪修內容可能讓學生在參加全國性考試時吃虧。

Jill Humpherys, a member of the board opposed to redacting, said there was no better way to call attention to the material than to try to remove it.
校董會中反對重新編輯內容的成員姬兒．韓佛瑞斯說，意圖刪除只會更吸引人去看個究竟。

“If you hand a high school student a book with words marked out or a sticker over parts of it, that’s going to be the most-read page in the textbook,” said Ms. Humpherys, a mother of five. “I’ve raised enough children to know that.”
5個孩子的母親韓佛瑞斯說：「給中學生一本書，裡面有字被塗掉或用貼紙貼去的一頁，會是這本教科書閱讀率最高的一頁。我孩子多，這點我很清楚。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/28/us/in-arizona-a-textbook-fuels-a-broader-dispute-over-sex-education.html

2015-01-13聯合報/G5版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 王麗娟譯 原文參見紐時週報十一版上