So it has come to this: In the name of “parental rights” and “school choice,” some Republican lawmakers in Concord are willing to expose New Hampshire schoolchildren to the risk of potential sexual and physical abuse.

This unconscionable dereliction of duty takes the form of opposition to a bill pending in the Legislature that would require criminal history background checks for all employees and volunteers at private schools and other educational entities that accept public funding and which provide in-person instruction. This step is only what is already required of public schools.

The need for background checks is especially pressing now that the Republicans are redirecting millions of dollars in public money into Education Freedom Accounts that parents may access at their discretion to make alternative educational arrangements for their children. As we have noted before, this program lacks basic accountability measures to ensure that taxpayer dollars are used appropriately, but even that failure pales in comparison with actually endangering the children enrolled in such private educational settings.

The perverse logic underpinning the Republicans’ objection to this basic safety measure has several off-the-wall components. For example, according to the New Hampshire Bulletin, some on the House Education Committee asserted that it is the role of parents, not the state, to determine whether they feel safe sending their children to a private school. In one way, this is an odd argument for them to make. Given that their goal (although unstated) for Education Freedom Accounts is to bleed the public schools of resources, promoting the safety of private schools would seem to be a good way to encourage more disaffected parents to take advantage of the program.

But more basically, this argument ignores the fact that the state has a compelling interest in ensuring the safety of children in all settings. That’s why child abuse constitutes serious criminal conduct subject to severe penalties under state law. An abstraction like individual parental rights cannot be allowed to override society’s very real stake in keeping children safe.

The Bulletin also reported that Rep. Kristin Noble, R-Bedford, argued that background checks are unnecessary since the staff at private schools “are people that (parents) trust.” It has apparently somehow escaped Noble’s attention that most child abuse is inflicted not by strangers but by trusted adults — family members, or friends, or adults in positions of authority.

The final blind alley into which these blinkered opponents are wandering is the claim by Rep. Glenn Cordelli, R-Tuftonboro, that once taxpayer money is transferred to parents through Education Freedom Accounts, it ceases to be public funding and therefore the state cannot establish requirements for its use. This is, of course, absurd. Public money distributed to individuals comes with all sorts of restrictions in all sorts of contexts.

We predict that if the Republicans succeed in killing this bill, Cordelli’s libertarian fantasy will meet hard reality sooner or later when an aggrieved parent sues the state on behalf of a child who has suffered abuse at a publicly funded private school. We suspect that many a plaintiff’s lawyer would welcome the opportunity to make the case to a jury that the state’s responsibility to children follows where public funding leads. Given that more than 700 lawsuits have been filed against the state claiming sexual and physical abuse at the state’s youth detention center over many decades, and that the Legislature has already established a $100 million fund to settle such claims, committee members ought not to take the liability issue lightly.

It may also be that opponents of the bill have not fully considered that the lack of background check requirements at private schools could serve as an open invitation to problematic characters to insinuate themselves into those settings as employees or volunteers.

Finally, we sadly note that, according to the InDepthNH news site, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester registered opposition to the bill at a public hearing in February, demonstrating anew that the church is either clueless or shameless in these matters. Its history alone is a compelling argument for why background checks are absolutely essential.

Cordelli predicts that the committee’s vote on the bill in November will divide along partisan lines, 10-10, and the legislation will then move on to the full House for a vote. We urge the Republicans to search their consciences carefully before they end up with a lot on them to feel guilty about.