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Birth control for middle-schoolers?
Soon after reading Amanda’s post on Susan Orr’s appointment to head the Office of Population Affairs—the office in the Health and Human Services Department that oversees family planning—I read that the school board in Portland, Maine, has—by an astounding (to me) 10-2 vote—decided to allow middle-students to get prescription birth control without parental notification.
Putting the two stories alongside each other demonstrates what a disheartening divide we still have on the topic of birth control, without even bringing up abortion. I might be the only person writing here who wishes abortion weren’t legal, but I’m a pragmatic pro-lifer: Birth control is a wonderful thing. Condoms, the pill, sponges—the more, the better. It’s beyond ridiculous to tell women that they shouldn’t have abortions and then oppose any means by which they can prevent pregnancy.
At least, I like to think I’m pragmatic on this issue. But when I read that people want to put 12-year-old girls on the pill and not notify parents, I’m horrified. Sure, you can throw up your hands and say, “They’re having sex anyway. Shouldn’t we do what we can?” But once you do that, where do you draw the line? Is there even a line left to draw? William Saletan had an interesting piece a few weeks ago that discussed how difficult it is to come up with an appropriate “age of consent.” One line from that piece (and I’m not trying to take Will out of context—his article dealt largely with statutory rape) seems relevant to this discussion: “Consent implies competence, and 12-year-olds don't really have that.”
I know the statistics show that offering birth control to teenagers doesn’t increase sexual activity. But so many people—parents, educators, volunteers—are working hard to help girls create build self-esteem and create the positive self-images that encourage them to say no to sex. Measures like this one seem to undercut those efforts. And isn’t one of the problems with education today that parents aren’t involved enough? By removing the parents from the equation here, you’re not doing anything to foster the strong family relationships that our children need.
(As an aside, I also find it odd that some schools have such a zero-tolerance policy for drugs that they will suspend a girl for taking a Motrin for PMS; yet in other places schools will help girls get the pill.)
After all that, I guess my question is this: Will we ever reach a middle ground, where we can agree that it’s stupid to say “abstinence rules,” yet still think it’s a pretty damn bad idea to give 12-year-olds the pill behind their parents’ back?
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