Maine Middle School to Offer Birth Control
In Portland, Maine, education officials have implemented a possible answer to unplanned pregnancies among middle school girls: making birth control pills available to girls as young as 11 years old.
Since condoms have been available since the year of 2000 at King’s health center, King Middle School will be the first middle school in Maine to offer a full range of contraceptives (including birth control pills and patches).
Students still need parental permission in order to gain access to the school’s health center. However, treatment is strictly confidential under state law. Meaning, it is still upon the students whether they would be informing their parents regarding the services that they are receiving.
According to Divya Mohan, spokeswoman of National Assembly on School-Based Health Care, it is very rare for a middle school to implement a birth control campaign such as this. But then again Portland’s three middle schools have already reported 17 unplanned pregnancies during the last four years and this is excluding those which are miscarried are terminated during the course of pregnancy, without the knowledge of the school nurse.
According to school official Richard Veilleux, this is not to encourage kids to have sex but rather, this is about kids who are engaging in sexually activity and those are two entirely different things.
What do you think?
Full source of the story here.
