ACLJ To Sue Portland School Board Over Birth Control For Minors

I’ve written about the local controversy regarding the Portland School Board’s recent vote to allow the Health Center at King Middle School to provide birth control to students who range in ages 11 to 14. It’s been in the national news quite a bit thanks to outraged conservative talk show hosts like O’Reilly and Glen Beck even though King Middle School won’t be the first middle school to offer oral birth control — schools in Boston and Seattle have had successful teen-pregnancy-rate-reducing programs for years, as I’ve mentioned before.

Now we’re in the national news again. A D.C.-based, Christian law group started by Pat Robertson, the American Center for Law & Justice has given the Portland School Board an ultimatum — reverse the new policy or they are going to sue supposedly on behalf of the student’s parents. The legal group did say that they would accept a compromise if the board would ensure that only students ages 14 and up have access to the birth control and only with written permission from their parents.

As a local, I admit to being tee’d off that they’re butting their noses into a local affair.

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Let’s Talk About Maine Teen Sex, Baby

According to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll, Sixty-seven percent of people polled support giving contraceptives to students and nearly that many (62%) believe that doing so will reduce the number of teen pregnancies. While, most who support schools distributing contraceptives do prefer that they only go to children whose parents have consented permission to do so, people are closely divided over whether sex education and birth control are more effective than stressing morality and abstinence, and, of course, whether or not giving contraceptives to teenagers encourages them to engage in sexual activity.

Not surprisingly, while men and women have similar views about whether to provide contraceptives to students, men are more likely than women to think it will encourage sexual intercourse — 43% to 55%. Perhaps men themselves consider just having a form of birth control like a green light in their minds, while women consider birth control as a precaution like the Boy Scout motto “Always be prepared.”

Teenage pregnancy rates have declined to about 75 per 1,000 teens, down from a 1990 peak of 117 pregnancies, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research center. Still, it’s important to note that nearly half of teens aged 15 to 19 report having had sex at least once, and almost 750,000 of them a year become pregnant.

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Maine Middle School Contraceptive Controversy Rages On Locally

Although the national coverage seems to have died down a bit, the local controversy regarding the Portland School Board’s decision to allow King Middle School’s Health Center to distribute medical birth control to students rages on. All of the national outrage has created some misconceptions as well as brought some excellent concerns to the table.

• According to a national survey, 18 to 20 percent of adolescents have had intercourse by age 14, reports CBS News national correspondent Byron Pitts. [Birth Control For Maine Middle Schoolers]

• One misconception that conservative talk show hosts and leaders have led the public to believe is that Maine is the first school system to provide this kind of service. Actually, middle schools in Baltimore and Seattle have provided oral contraceptives to students since the early 1990s and the programs have been successful in reducing teen pregnancy rates. In Baltimore, where there are health clinics at three middle schools, the number full-term pregnancies for girls under 15 dropped from 113 in 1995 to 44 in 2005. Maine has the 5th lowest teen pregnancy rate in the country, so while it isn’t expecting as dramatic a rate drop, there were a reported 7 teen pregnancies among 3 middle schools in four years and those numbers hopefully can be reduced further. King reported 1 pregnancy last year and other students who were sexually active.

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Maine Middle School To Offer Responsible Choice

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?)

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