When I read that Portland, Maine had voted to authorize the dispensation of birth control pills to middle schoolers — yes, MIDDLE SCHOOLERs — I came as close as I’ve ever come to sounding like a conservative backwater red state groupie.  Maybe it’s because I have a middle school daughter myself, or maybe it’s just that I’m appalled at the idea of shoving extra hormones into a hormone-riddled child, I don’t know.  But the more I read, the more wrong-headed the decision appears.

Don’t misunderstand: I’m not a prude who thinks that teenagers don’t have sex.  I know better — just go back through my blog posts here and you’ll find our own experiences with that particular subject.  But at the same time, I’m not buying the arguments for why Maine’s decision could possibly be a good thing.

The backstory is this: In Maine, clinics are attached to schools in areas where there is need, presumably economic need.  Parents can sign a form (PDF) to grant permission for their children to be treated at the school clinics, giving the student access to clinic services.  Access means full access — physical, dental, psychiatric.  Parents may revoke consent at any time but are not entitled to any health information about their child’s clinic treatment unless their child chooses to disclose it.  From what I’m reading, it looks like the students who are eligible for clinic services fall below a certain income level or low economic status. 

Despite the fact that the number of students who reported being sexually active dropped by half in one year to 13%, the school board in this district felt that offering birth control pills was appropriate.  Let’s not forget that we are not talking about 15-17 year olds here.  We’re talking about girls age 11-13.

Yes.  Girls as young as eleven now have access to birth control pills, patches or injections, and the morning-after pill.  Of those four solutions, the only one I even come close to supporting is the morning-after pill, and really, I don’t support that for reasons I’ll enumerate later.

Go read this post and more specifically, read the discussion in the comments, which is far more interesting than the post itself.  There seem to be three main schools of thought represented there:

1. Accept and Prevent on Moral Grounds - The kids are going to have sex and there’s nothing we can do about it, so we might as well protect them.  This is the position that Denise takes in her post over on Blogher, arguing that “we may not like it but sixth graders are getting pregnant”.  While I’ve ceded that Denise is always right in the past, on this one I think she’s wrong.  Dead wrong. 
2. Reject and Dissent on Moral Grounds - This is the argument that says premarital sex is immoral and wrong and kids shouldn’t be educated or medicated for it.  I also think this is wrong.
3. Bifurcate Morals and Health - This is where I stand .  This is not a moral issue; it’s a public health issue.  If the issue were only teenage pregnancies, then there might be some wisdom to the school board’s decision.  But it’s not.  Birth control pills and similar methods might — MAYBE — prevent pregnancy, assuming that you can rely upon a kid age 11-14 to actually remember to take the pills consistently or wear the patch consistently.  What they do not prevent is STDs, which places more kids far more at risk than pregnancy does. By making non-barrier methods of birth control available, the school board signals that it is less interested in children’s health than it is the possiblity of adding another child to the welfare rolls. Further, it sends the message that responsibility for birth control rests solely with the female in a sexual relationship and absolves the male of any accountability

When I read the arguments for and against around the web, there seems to be a common thread of surrender in them that runs this way: “As parents, we MUST accept the possibility that our children are having sex and we MUST therefore facilitate their access to birth control methods including the Pill and other counterparts.” I don’t accept that when it comes to kids in middle school. I don’t really accept it when it comes to kids at all, but I am realistic enough to understand that it certainly will happen with kids over the age of 15 or so.

There also seems to be a priority drawn when it comes to pregnancy. The idea is that pregnancy should be prevented at all costs, including the health of the girl-woman. I say this because the issue of STDs seem to become secondary when engaging in this discussion. When the issue of condoms as an effective method of STD AND pregnancy prevention arises, the counterargument seems to be something along the lines of “these kids either can’t be trusted to use a condom” or “they can’t use it properly.”

Then they have no business having sex and yes, it’s the parents’ responsibility to see to it that they don’t!  At middle school ages, it’s really not all that difficult.  Just be a parent — know where your kids are and what they’re doing and who they’re doing it with.   To use the extreme example here, would we hand them a pistol and ammunition and tell them to go have fun with it without teaching them the safe way to handle, load and shoot the gun? Where did we get the idea that it’s okay to abrogate responsibility as parents and as a society merely because birth control pills and the morning-after pills exist?

Fundamentally, this is a decision by a government body that says, in essence, these things:

1. Parents are irresponsible and cannot be trusted to make sure their kids are properly educated and equipped before making a decision to have sex.
2. We must accept that kids aged 11-13 will have sex because they are capable of having sex, regardless of whether they understand the full implications of having sex
3. The fact that kids are having sex means we can do nothing to stop it. We can only prevent some of the consequences. Maybe.
4. It is more important that we prevent unwanted pregnancies than that we protect the health and well-being of these children.

At least one of the members of the Portland Board of Education agrees. Tonight the board is considering a resolution to limit access to students age 14 and older and then only authorize birth control pills or the patch. I still think that it’s wrong, that it sends the message that they shouldn’t worry about herpes or HIV or HPV or syphillis or gonorrhea or other horrid diseases because hey — they’re not pregnant at least. However,if they pass this resolution they are at least sending the message that younger kids should not have access to these methods of birth control.

Just yesterday a study was released that shows the possibility of increased risk of plaque buildup in the arteries of women who take the Pill for a year or more.  Do we really think it’s a good idea to place kids’ health at risk this way at such a young age?

As a final point, what’s really immoral to me is having parents sign a release that permits their children to be treated by a state-funded facility, and then barring the parents from knowing what treatment their children received.  No parent should agree to such a thing in exchange for basic health services.  Vaccines were the most common treatment administered by the clinic at King Middle School in Portland.  In order to get their children vaccinated, parents should not be required to give blanket permission for all treatments without their knowledge and consent. 

For those who say that parents won’t pay attention, let’s wake ‘em up and make them pay attention. How about holding their feet to the fire for a change instead of hanging our heads and saying “well, they just won’t, can’t, don’t take responsibility.”  To me, this is as much a parenting requirement as feeding and clothing them.  We don’t get to be half a parent, doing the easy things at the expense of the kids. 

I think we should quit buying the bandaids and start doing the hard thing — like holding parents accountable, providing safe places for kids to be visible and accountable when their parents are working with adult-supervised activities, and raise the bar instead of lowering it.

Related:  Letter to parents explaining the policy (PDF)

Blogged with Flock

Tags: maine, portland, middle school, birth control, King Middle School, birth control pills, hormone patch, morning-after pill