My children casually mention their lockdown drills, as if the threat of a school shooter is a minor annoyance. They also know what to do in the event of a fire or an earthquake, how to cross a street safely, and to always wear a life jacket when on the water. The schools have done a good job in educating them. They have been equipped to protect themselves.
But this is not self-defense -- it is ethical adults protecting children. It is the active choice of adults taking steps to prevent a clear and present danger. These dangers are predictable and preventable, and so we are ethically compelled to take action to prevent them.
This is the guiding ethic behind Erin's Law, which would require that all public schools teach a prevention-oriented child sexual abuse program. Why is it so important that this education is given to all children? Because according to the U.S. Department of Justice, 93 percent of children who are abused are abused by people they know and trust -- approximately 30 percent of them by family members, including parents. In Alaska, according to Providence Health and Services, that could amount to more than 2,000 cases of parental abuse per year. But if it were an opt-in program, it is unlikely that offending parents would sign the permission slip -- and the children who need it the most would not receive the education about how to protect themselves.
From an ethical point of view, if we understand that harm will come to a child and yet refuse to take action, then we are just as guilty as the perpetrator. If we see a person on the railroad tracks, unaware of the approaching train, and choose not to call out a warning, then we are responsible for his death. This is the ethical logic behind mandatory fire drills, background checks, seat belts, and many other things we do to protect the most vulnerable. In the words of German Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."
This is why in Alaska, which has highest rates in the country of sexual assault, the passage of Erin's Law is an ethical imperative. We must act, because we understand that child abuse will continue. We also understand that, just as we can reduce deaths with fire drills, we can reduce abuse by educating children. If we choose not to equip children to recognize abuse and get help, then we are responsible for their abuse, just as surely as if our children drown because we did not give them a life jacket.
Sen. Mike Dunleavy has endangered these protections by changing the law to make it an opt-in program. This will cause many Alaskan children to remain uneducated about how to defend themselves. A politician who claims to be pro-family has taken a decidedly anti-family action in order to advance his own agenda, using the safety of children as a political bargaining chip.
Those hundreds, possibly thousands of children that would have been helped by this law, but instead are abused, are the man on the railroad track. They are the child on the boat without a life jacket. They are our responsibility. But there is hope: If Sen. Dunleavy shirks this ethical responsibility, Sen. Anna MacKinnon can still advance HB 44 in its original form. In order to protect children from the horrors of sexual abuse, I call on her to do the morally right thing, and bring it to a vote.
In an opinion piece published by ADN in Febuary 2013, Sen. Dunleavy said the following: "As parents and grandparents, we believe the protection of children ought to be our top priority, which is why it is essential for law-abiding citizens to have the means to defend themselves."
I hope that he can see that for a child, this means education, and that as adults, we are all ethically responsible for providing it for all of Alaska's children.
The Rev. Matthew Schultz is pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Anchorage.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.