Birth Control for 11-Year Olds
At these “Health-Centers,” e.g., Orwellian hospitals, kids can get abortions, birth-control pills (along with all the risks of hormonal treatments -- Cancer, depression, etc), all without the parents knowledge. Some parents would be naïve to think that this clinic will hand out cold pills when their kid is sick, thus saving them money. No, this is basically a baby step to cradle-to-grave socialized health-care.
Students who have parental permission to be treated at
The proposal would build on the
If the committee approves the King proposal, it would be the first middle school in Maine to make a full range of contraception available to some students in grades 6 to 8, said Nancy Birkhimer, director of teen health programs for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. Most middle schoolers are ages 11-13.
Although students must have written parental permission to be treated at Portland's school-based health centers, state law allows them to seek confidential health care and to decide whether to inform their parents about the services they receive, Belanger said…..
Nationally, the top five reproductive health services offered at school-based health centers were, in descending order: pregnancy testing, abstinence counseling, HIV/AIDS counseling, birth control counseling, and the diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, according to the national assembly.
I will post some reader comments on this article that I think are insightful… insightful enough to post:
Racer of
Actually, this topic isn't about whether or not birth control should be available, because condoms are already made available, and condoms actually help (although not perfect), reduce sexually transmitted disease.
The topic is about whether or not prescription birth control should be made available, and as such this primarily involves the girls. The article does not state what kind of prescription birth control, but I "assume" it would include hormonal methods such as the birth control pill.
Hormonal birth controls are a double edged sword for girls and there are many increased risks as well as possible benefits but I can think of no logical reason to allow this type of birth control to be issued without parental knowledge when condoms are already available.
This is different than a vaccine to reduce the incidence of a particular cancer in girls... This clearly targets adding prescription birth control methods to the condoms already available. I cannot see a logical reason for wanting this level of involvement from any school when the risks of long term usage of birth control pills are quite clear in the general female population and who knows what risks will be increased by introducing this method of birth control into girls that are so young?
bsmith of westbrook, ME
When we get into the argument of what the government should and should not do, there is only one way out of that. People will need to pay the entire cost of the education for their own children. Only then will the parent have the most say over what happens because they are footing the entire bill. Or, do home school. As of now the average cost in
My wife and I stared at eachother this morning in abject disbelief when we read this story. Birth control for 11-13 year olds because "they need it", "they're sexually active"?!? By providing birth control, the school and the state are implicitly condoning behavior that they should be aggresively educating children to avoid
These small children are not yet at the mental age to make informed decisions about this type of behavior. They look to adults for direction and a model to follow. Seeing those adults hand out birth control is little different than the nurse handing out free heroin based on the foolish rationale that "kids will get it somehwere so we should make sure they get safe heroin".
You school administrators are absolute imbeciles. Everyone involved in the education of our children should be required to complete at least 2 years of developmental psychology and human physiology classes at an accredited 4 year college. Instead, we get "teachers" who attend teacher's colleges that indoctrinate them with this garbage. God save our children in public schools.
applpie of
This is insane. This school system is trying to back parents into a corner for 4% of the students who say they are having sex? Just like trying to force the Gardisil vaccine on young girls. Doesn't matter what is best for maturing teens or the health concerns regarding these products....all that matters is these horrid lobbies like Planned Parenthood and the pharmaceutical companies want your kids to become consumers of their services and will do anything to encourage it. It is NOT about protecting the kids...it is about money and pushing a liberal, amoral agenda onto the public. Common sense is gone.
Craig of Caribou, ME
This is a great idea but doesn't go far enough. Kids will experiment with bondage; we need to provide gags and handcuffs. We also need to provide whips and stiletto heels. A lot of children experiment sexually with their pets. Providing large dogs and farm animals that the kids can check out for the weekend is essential to their sexual health. (Think of the children who aren't privileged to have pets of their own. We have to think of the children!)
Kids will also experiment with drugs. A supply of marijuana in the nurse's office isn't enough. The school nurse should be able to prescribe ecstasy in appropriate doses so the kids don't overdose. Other drugs should be available on request. It's not that ALL the kids are drug users, but rather that the ones who are don't have access to the same resources as the others.
The most important thing is not to tell the parents. School administrators and school board members are of a more highly evolved species of human. They care more about children, they know more about child-rearing, and they simply have more capacity to think and love than do the parents of children. It's important especially that poor and minority parents defer to the judgment of wealthy white school administrators who know more about what's good for their children than they do. After all, they work for the government, so....
