Half of the senior class at Trinity Classical Academy had the opportunity Tuesday morning to ask local members of various political parties their viewpoints on key issues that the country has been facing.
The five-member panel included: Andrew Taban, founder and political director of the Santa Clarita Democrats; Denise Lite, chairwoman of the Republican Central Committee of the 40th Assembly District, John Due, chair of the Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County; Alexander Avalos, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America party; and Pastor David Hegg of Grace Baptist Church.
During the first half of the meeting, the panelists were able to sit among the students in small groups and be asked their parties’ stance on topics including immigration, abortion, national affairs and isolationism.
The second half was staged to be a panel, and the students again were able to ask followup questions from their small groups.
The topic that brought on the most conversation from the panelists and students was abortion rights.
Student Ella Williams asked the panelists when they thought life began.
Hegg said he was speaking from a biblical perspective: “I think it’s a full person. And if we wonder what it is then we think what kind of life it is. Is it an oak tree? Is it a salmon? It’s a human and it already has all the potential of it and therefore has rights.”
Lite said that she would err on the side of caution that life begins at conception and protect any life rather than to say that it’s not worthy of protection.
Avalos said that it was up to an individual’s perspective and beliefs. “I don’t think anyone, especially government, should have a right to tell you what you can do with your body. And we do this in basically every other situation, right? Being an organ donor is optional, right? Even though when you die, you can say tens of people doing this, maybe even hundreds, right? But we don’t make people do that. I don’t think you should.”
Due said that life begins when you believe it begins. He said his belief is that women can get abortions and people can’t tell what them to do. He added that there are limits to that because after a certain amount of time it should not be allowed.
Taban answered that the Democratic Party believes an individual can believe what they want to believe in but they’re not going to tell you what you should believe in.
“You aren’t going to be forced by the government to get one, but you also don’t get to force when someone can and cannot get one,” said Taban.
He added that if it is forced that someone needs to keep their baby despite their choice to not keep it for a reason, there should be a system in place to help them take care of the child because you don’t know why they did not want to have the child.
Liz Caddow, head of school and the government teacher, said in preparation for this debate meeting the students researched the purpose of political parties, and how they were formed.
“We picked these four parties in particular to give a good cross representation of how our culture thinks,” said Caddow. “They do the research, and they come prepared with the questions, and it allows the ebb and flow of discussion and dialogue to gain an understanding about how these representatives of the various platforms view things.”
Caddow said holding this debate every semester is important because it gives the students the opportunity to understand the purpose of government, the Constitution and their responsibility as citizens in a well-rounded way.
