Home > eNews Article > Free Contraceptives For Middle School Children

Free Contraceptives for Middle School Children

from the October 16, 2007 eNews issue
http://www.khouse.org (visit our website for a FREE subscription)

Middle school students in Portland, Maine will have access to birth control prescriptions through their school's health center if the Portland School Committee approves a proposal on Wednesday.

The health center at King Middle School in Portland, Maine is available to students whose parents have given permission for their children to be treated there. Most children who use the health center seek help for sore throats, coughs, and asthma, and to get routine physical examinations and vaccinations. The health center does more than treat the common cold, though. It also distributes condoms to its few sexually active students and soon may also be able examine and hand out birth control prescriptions to the 11-14 year olds who ask.

Children having children - the problem exploded in the 1970s and 1980s as sexual activity among teens increased. Then, as families, communities, religious organizations and government agencies worked double time to give kids better guidance, the number of sexually active high school students began dropping nationwide. The number of sexually active middle school kids in Maine dropped from 23 percent in 1997 to 13 percent in 2005, according to the Maine Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Of the 134 students who visited King Middle School's health center last year, five reported they had had sexual intercourse.

Advocates of the birth control program argue that the few high-risk children need to have contraceptives available to them. They may not go to their parents for birth control, and may therefore end up pregnant. The school must, they argue, step in and help.

A proposal like this raises huge health and parental rights issues. It also raises the question, "Will the 'cure' do more damage than the problem itself?" Right now very few girls at King Middle School are sexually active. A higher availability of birth control, however, may encourage 12 and 13-year-olds to experiment sexually more than they otherwise would have.

Leaving parents out of the equation is also extremely bad policy. Studies consistently show that parental involvement is one of the foremost factors in preventing high-risk behavior among teens. Allowing children to circumvent their parents does not protect them, but simply allows them to do more behind their parents' backs.

In fact, according to a study by Florida State University law professor Jonathan Klick, parental consent and notification laws for abortion correlate with a drop in sexual activity in the states that have those laws. Klick and Thomas Stratmann, professor of economics at George Mason University, found that teens adjusted their behavior to the laws of their state. The states without parental notification laws in effect had significantly higher rates of gonorrhea than states with laws that required kids to let their parents know before they got an abortion, indicating that kids who could go around their parents to get abortions were also more likely to have high-risk sex.

Teaching young people to make wise decisions begins in the home. If young people do not have the support and guidance at home they need to make good decisions, however, the school system should not take charge and grease the way to make bad decisions. The best things we as individuals can do is reach out to the kids we know personally, to help them. We can be involved in our schools, go to school board meetings, and helpfully discuss with teachers and administrators about positive things that can be done to help the at-risk kids in our communities. And, before all these things, we need to continue to pray for our towns and communities, and for our governments.