Teen’s antiabortion club gets green light

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Virginia high school officials recently gave a green light to a teen’s request for a once-banned after-school antiabortion club, the Washington Post reported.

"We just wanted the same rights as other clubs," 16-year-old Stephanie Hoffmeier told the Post. "It's not a radical thing to expect equal treatment."

Stafford County, Virginia, school officials initially denied Hoffmeier’s spring request to host the club, which opposes abortion and promotes sexual abstinence, saying the club was not associated with school curriculum. Hoffmeier filed a lawsuit in September contending the decision violated her free-speech rights because other clubs with religious or political missions existed at Colonial Forge High School.

"There is a discomfort with religious speech in the schools, even when it's engaged in by students, which should not be the case," David Cortman, a lawyer with Arizona’s Alliance Defense Fund, which assisted Hoffmeier, told the Post.

School officials reversed themselves, and Hoffmeier dropped the suit. About 20 people attended the club’s first meeting.