Del. Kathy Szeliga blasted the Maryland General Assembly for greenlighting a bill that would allow contraceptive vending machines in schools at every level.
Maryland has a notoriously low teenage birth rate, ranking among the bottom 20 states for teenage births as of 2022, the last year the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collected data. However, in Baltimore, the issue is much more prevalent, as there are twice as many teenage births in the capital than in the rest of the state, which is also three times greater than the national average.
The bill in question removed a criminal penalty from “selling or offering for sale a contraceptive or contraceptive device by means of a vending machine or other automatic device at a kindergarten, nursery school, elementary school, or secondary school,” according to the General Assembly website. Currently this is considered a misdemeanor, and violators face a $1,000 fine. It does not mandate schools to have the machines.
Szeliga appeared on Fox News’s America Reports on Wednesday as a grandmother to two 7-year-old girls. As a Republican delegate, she led an effort to amend the bill to only include high schools, but this alteration was rejected twice in the Democrat-controlled House.
“It makes no sense whatsoever,” said. “When they rejected our move to just make it high school again, I like you would say, you are discriminating against traditional families that don’t want 14-year-old daughter going to a high school and walking down the hall in front of sex vending machine. But putting this in a day care or nursery school, into a preschool … I can’t imagine [my granddaughters] walking down the hall and seeing a colorful vending machine.”
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Del. Nicole Williams defended her bill on the House floor, insisting the bill wasn’t “dictating” or “mandating” that every school instate vending machines.
However, this bill is joined by House Bill 61, which prohibits parents from removing their children from lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation. Democrats advanced this bill as well.