Middle schools are now handing out birth control. Earlier this month, the school board of the Portland, Maine, school district voted to approve a plan to offer free contraception to middle school students without their parents' knowledge or consent. The responses have ranged from cautiously supportive to outraged. While the idea of sex in middle school is shocking to many, the community of Portland should come to its senses and support the program.
The proposal, created by the Portland Division of Public Health, provides students at King Middle School access to prescriptive birth control medication along with the condoms, pregnancy screening and sexually transmitted infection screening the school health center has been providing since 2000. Middle schools in Seattle and Baltimore have been offering the service for several years. According to the Baltimore Sun, Maryland passed a law in the 1970s providing girls 12 years and older confidential access to contraception.
Out of the 500 students at King Middle School, 135 are registered for access to the health program. The school requires parents to sign consent forms that enumerate the various confidential health services provided. Only five students, all 14 or 15 years old, have identified themselves as sexually active; one girl is pregnant. The number of sexually active students is small, but the school decided to institute the program after learning that 17 students have become pregnant in the past four years, with seven pregnancies occurring in the 2006-2007 school year.
If only five students at King seem to qualify for the service, some might question whether the program is even necessary. In fact, there is an outcry in the Portland community over the school board's 7-2 ruling in favor of the proposal. The Portland Republican Party chairman told the New York Times that the plan is "an attack on the moral fabric of our community, and a black eye for our state." Not too surprising, but what did surprise me was a quote from a 13-year-old female student named Carissa, who believes "it's stupid" because it encourages kids to be sexually active. I found this a disappointing reaction, because research from several studies has found that providing students with contraception does not increase the rate of teenage sexual activity any more than teaching abstinence.
Opposition to the program does have one very legitimate concern; the pill contains hormones that can potentially harm adolescents' bodies. Parents have a right to be concerned that the pill will cause harmful side effects in their daughters. However, the health services at King will not hand out oral contraception to a student unless the student's parents have signed the waiver acknowledging their consent of the child's enrollment in the confidential service, the student has attended counseling sessions, and a physician has examined the student. The program educates middle school students about safe sexual behavior; it does not assume that students are well-informed enough to fully understand the risks involved in having sex and using contraception.
Opposing the implementation of this program, then, seems to be simply an issue of fear. This upsets me; what is the fear of community leaders worried about their moral reputations and parents worried about exposing their kids to the existence of teenage sexual behavior compared to the utter terror of a pregnant 13-year-old girl?
First of all, protecting the innocence of other students is not an issue. Most middle school students take some sort of sexual education class. And I'll bet you 10 condoms (your UGA hands them out free) that Carissa, the 13-year-old who opposes the new program, has a pretty good idea of who the five sexually active kids at her school are. There is no doubt that she knows exactly which girl is pregnant.
The fact that all her classmates know about her pregnancy, and several disapprove, must be pretty scary for the pregnant student. Community outcry over a program designed to help her and other students like her must be a nightmare.
In order to empower kids to make safe, wise decisions about sex and life in general, it is necessary to convince them we believe they will succeed if they try. Opposing King's contraception program is akin to saying that sexually active middle school students do not deserve services that will help them establish a better future. I am glad that Carissa's mother supports the program. Of course, the situation is not ideal, but since the problem exists, it is irresponsible and cold-hearted not to try to fix it.
