Back in the 80’s, when I was in high school, I had some friends who lived near my grandparents. I wrote to them often back then but only saw them a few times a year. I’ll admit that looking back now, we came from different backgrounds, social classes, and financial situations. Of course, at the time, I just thought they were more interesting to hang out with than my grandparents — though these are the same grandparents with the refrigerator for their keg…
Anyway, one of the kids had a younger sister who was in sixth grade. She was incredibly tall for a sixth grader but still she was only about 11 or 12. Her parents had to put her on birth control pills. Had to. That’s what I was told. Apparently they couldn’t keep her from having sex; so rather than have her get pregnant at that young age and have her go through either the trauma of having an abortion or having a baby at such a young age, they were making her take birth control pills.
Since I was a very good girl attending a private Christian school at the time, I thought this was very scandalous. Much more scandalous things would come from that family over the years and I eventually became numb to it. Besides, there are far more scandalous things on the news these days — look at Britney Spears. (Why is her child custody case even on the news? Do people really care?)
Anyway, the reason I got to thinking about this girl who I haven’t seen in 20 years, is that a middle school here in Maine has been making national news this week because The Portland School Committee has approved a plan to offer birth control in the school health center; while children need parental permission to access the health center, the treatment itself is confidential under state law, which leaves it up to the students to tell their parents or not. This decision was made because Portland’s three middle schools have reported 17 pregnancies during the last four years, not counting miscarriages or terminations that weren’t reported to the school nurse.
Five of the 134 students who visited King’s health center during the 2006-07 school year reported having sexual intercourse, said Amanda Rowe, lead nurse in Portland’s school health centers.
Committee member Sarah Thompson, also the mother of a King eighth-grader, supported the policy, even though it made her “uncomfortable.”
“I know I’ve done my job as a parent,” Thompson said. “(But there) may be a time when she doesn’t feel comfortable coming to me … (and) not all these kids have a strong parental advocate at home.”
[...] Some opponents cited religious and health objections.
“We are dealing with children,” said Diane Miller, a former school nurse said. “I am just horrified at the suggestion.”
Another opponent, Peter Doyle, said he felt the proposal violated the rights of parents and puts students at risk of cancer because of hormones in the pill.
Supporters said a small number of students at King are sexually active, but they need better access to birth control.
“This isn’t encouraging kids to have sex. This is about the kids who are engaging in sexually activity,” Richard Veilleux said.
At King, birth control prescriptions will be given after a student undergoes a physical exam by a physician or nurse practitioner, Belanger said. [Maine middle school to offer birth control (CNN)]
I think this is a good program. I have to agree with Sarah Thompson that kids are less likely to approach their parents to discuss this sort of thing, especially when said parents are likely to blow a gasket. I’d rather see kids practicing some form of safe sex than just have sex and risking everything. We can’t just assume that kids and young people aren’t going to have sex because we don’t want them to or because we’re withholding the safe sex materials. We have to be responsible enough to help them be responsible when they make those kinds of choices, whether we agree with them or not.
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Some have been freaking out about this, but the fact of the matter is that kids have to have parental permission to be treated at the clinic. I would have never talked to my parents about needing birth control when I was that young….or any age. You can’t stop a kid from having sex if their mind is set on it, so why not provide them with the tools to keep them from ruining their lives?
My own personal hopes for my own children aside, children much too young ARE having sex, and they are NOT talking with their parents about it. Denying them the means to protect themselves won’t change that, it will only worsen the consequences.
That said, I don’t think that a school has any business giving out hormonal birth control. I’d much rather see these kids having access to someplace like Planned Parenthood. Hormonal birth control has a lot more concerns and ramifications than a condom, I’d prefer that it only be given with the proper instruction, support and guidance.
Jumping straight to the teen sex issue really misses the larger, more important point in a big way in this case. This isn’t a clinic that’s talking about distributing condoms, but about hormone-altering drugs that come with a laundry-list of known side-effects and interactions. For a child that age, it is the parents who are responsible for monitoring physical health, providing pertinent family history, ensuring that the wrong medications don’t get mixed, etc. A parent who doesn’t know what medications her child is taking can’t do those things adequately, which may put the child’s health at serious risk.
One would hope that in giving the child permission to use the health center, part of the process is providing forms that include a health history and medication list. I can’t imagine that isn’t involved.
I agree that parents “should” be involved; unfortunately there are a lot of parents in denial or who simply refuse to take that kind of responsibility in their children’s lives.
Just like we would hope that children will wait until their adults but we can’t expect them all to do so, we hope that all parents will be responsible but we unfortunately can’t expect them all to do so.