A 10th grade science teacher in Idaho is being investigated by his school after parents complained that he included the word “vagina” in his lessons, taught the class about the female orgasm, and showed Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Some of the allegations are more serious, including that “he shared confidential student files with an individual other than their parents,” and “told inappropriate jokes in class,” but science teacher Tim McDaniel suspects that the complaints originated because of his discussions about issues considered controversial in the largely Mormon community where he teaches:

“I teach straight out of the textbook, I don’t include anything that the textbook doesn’t mention,” McDaniel said. “But I give every student the option not attend this class when I teach on the reproductive system if they don’t feel comfortable with the material.”

The science teacher said he has taught Dietrich’s science classes for the past 18 years without receiving a complaint from parents or students.

According to McDaniel, the commission is also investigating a complaint that accuses him of using school property to promote a political candidate. The complaint was because he showed the climate change film “An Inconvenient Truth,” also in his science class.

McDaniel said he includes the film to spark a discussion on climate change among the students. After watching the film, he asks students to write a response paper explaining their thoughts on climate change.

Idaho is a state that has no requirement for sex education and no mandated HIV education. It does have a requirement that students be allowed to opt out of sex ed classes, to which McDaniel says he adhered.

(HT: Raw Story )

A federal judge has struck down Idaho’s “fetal pain” law, which outlaws abortion services after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the scientifically-disputed theory that fetuses can feel pain at that point.

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill determined that Idaho’s fetal pain restriction places an “undue burden” on women seeking to have an abortion, which is a direct violation of women’s constitutional rights. The judge also criticized Iowa’s GOP-dominated legislature for allowing protections for fetuses to outweigh women’s right to choose. “The state may not rely on its interest in the potential life of the fetus to place a substantial obstacle to abortion before viability in women’s paths,” Winmill’s decision stated.

Roe v. Wade guarantees women’s right to a legal abortion until the point of viability, generally around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Nevertheless, imposing limits on late-term abortion is one of the most popular tactics that anti-choice lawmakers use to chip away at women’s reproductive rights. Seven states have instituted fetal pain bans over the past several years — and similar measures have advanced in at least two additional states, Arkansas and North Dakota, so far this legislative session.

Winmill is just the latest judge to confront one of these stringent state-level restrictions. Fetal pain measures in Georgia and Arizona have also been blocked from taking effect — and the courts’ decisions in those states, along with Winmell’s decision, could threaten the 20-week bans around the rest of the country. Depending how the situation in Idaho plays out as Winmell’s decision is appealed to the Ninth Circuit, its law could actually be headed all the way to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, despite multiple legal challenges to 20-week abortion bans, abortion opponents are still focused on enacting blatantly unconstitutional attacks on women’s reproductive rights. On Wednesday, Republicans in Arkansas overruled their governor’s veto to enact the harshest abortion ban in the nation, outlawing all abortion procedures after just 12 weeks of pregnancy. While late-term abortions tend to be rare, and typically involve concerns about the health of the woman or the the fetus, abortions after 12 weeks are much more common. Arkansas’ new abortion ban would outlaw one out of every 10 abortions in the state.

A state senator in Idaho is expressing her distaste for President Obama’s health care reform law by drawing a comparison between the private insurance companies participating in Obamacare and the “Jews boarding the trains to concentration camps” during the Holocaust.

According to Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll (R), Idaho should refuse to set up a state-run health exchange under Obamacare because, although the federal government is using private insurers for the time being, the Obama administration will eventually “pull the trigger” on those companies to establish a socialistic health care system.

Nuxoll posted her comments on Twitter, as well as included them in an email blast to 120 supporters:

The insurance companies are creating their own tombs. Much like the Jews boarding the trains to concentration camps, private insurers are used by the feds to put the system in place because the federal government has no way to set up the exchange. Based on legislation and the general process that is written toward this legislation, the federal government will want nothing to do with private insurance companies. The feds will have a national system of health insurance and they will eliminate the insurance companies.

When the Idaho Spokesman-Review asked Nuxoll to clarify her comments, she doubled down on them. Nuxoll said she didn’t mean to disrespect any group of people with her analogy, and explained she said it because “I felt badly for the Jews — it wasn’t just Jews, but Jews, and Christians, and Catholics, and priests. My thing was they didn’t know what was going on. The insurance companies are not realizing what’s going to end up in their demise.”

Idaho’s Senate President Pro-Tem, Brent Hill (R), also stood behind Nuxoll. “This is a very emotional issue for a lot of people,” Hill told the Spokesman-Review. “There’s a lot of ‘stuff’ going around, a lot of information, a lot of viewpoints being expressed. As we get closer to making that decision, the rhetoric’s going to get more dramatic.”

While Idaho Gov. Butch Otter (R) is a vocal critic of health care reform, he has agreed to set up a state-run exchange under Obamacare because he has acknowledged it will allow Idaho to retain more control over its own insurance market. The federal government will simply step in and set up exchanges in the states that refuse to do so themselves. Obamacare’s health exchanges, along with the health law’s optional Medicaid expansion, seek to extend health care to an estimated 30 million low-income Americans who are currently uninsured.