Religious busybodies challenge Maine school board decision
A surprisingly progressive school board in Portland, Maine, voted last month to allow students at one middle school to receive contraceptives confidentially from the school’s health clinic.
Parents of students at King Middle School have to give their children written permission to visit the clinic, but anything that happens in the clinic, including prescribing birth control pills, would be private, even from the parents.
True to our democratic process, the policy was suitably debated in public meetings, and the school board by majority vote approved the new policy. Since we have a decentralized educational system in the States, the birth-control policy only affects this one school in this one district.
But sex is an emotional subject in the US of A, and handing out contraceptives to pre-teens and teens is even touchier.
O the horror!
Those guardians of all that is pure and holy, the religious right, had to stick their nose in Portland’s business, of course. A Maine legislator is posturing about the whole affair, proposing new laws making it illegal for schools to hand out contraceptives without specific parental consent.
I suppose they hope to save the nation, and the state of Maine, from eternal hellfire and damnation. These are the same folks who push abstinence-only sex ed, after all.
The King Middle School policy, if you check it out dispassionately, is perfectly sensible. Out of 510 students, only five would actually qualify for contraception, according to The Associated Press. Those five are apparently sexually active.
No pills or condoms will be handed out to any student without extensive counseling. No pre-pubescent student will receive anything either, though clinicians told The AP that a precocious 11-year-old could in fact receive contraceptives.
And, most importantly, THEIR PARENTS HAVE TO GIVE PERMISSION TO VISIT THE CLINIC. In case it is not clear, I had to shout that one out. The policy does not permit the school to hand pills and rubbers out willy-nilly to any kid who just asks for them.
Jay Sekulow’s American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), however, announced last week that it was going to challenge the policy in court. In case you’ve never heard of it, the ACLJ is the Bizarro version of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). If the ACLU is for it, the ACLJ is against it.
The ACLJ contends that the Portland School Committee is not only usurping parental authority but also violating a Maine law by not reporting all illegal sexual activity involving children 13 years old or younger.
“This is an issue where the rights of parents must be protected,” said Sekulow, chief counsel of the ACLJ, in a statement.
Right. The parents have already given their permission, and the board approved the policy by majority vote. Obviously these Mainers are moral reprobates and the ACLJ has to swoop in to save them from themselves.
The ACLJ, or forces aligned with it, have also started a national petition to the Portland board to cease and desist this horrible practice to allowing five kids to get contraceptives. According to The Christian Post, this petition already has 40,000 signatures.
They’re probably the same people who petitioned NBC from ever showing any portion of Janet Jackson’s boobs ever again. That microsecond glimpse of her breast was the worst national disaster since 9/11 and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We’re still recovering.
[Seriously, these petitions from the religious right are started by the leaders, who get their followers worked up into a froth by giving them half the story. The Internet makes it so easy now to circulate meaningless petitions to careless signers.]
Meanwhile, State Sen. Doug Smith (R-Maine) plans to submit a bill that would require parental consent before any school in the state could give prescription birth control to children 14 years old or younger. The bill will be considered in the 2008 legislature.
Smith said that if students can’t go to the art museum without a permission slip from a parent, they shouldn’t be getting prescription drugs without parental permission, according to The AP.
Hello? They already gave their permission, Mr Smith. Were you paying attention? Or were you too blinded by the opportunity to gain the political limelight?
Personally, I think the Portland schools are doing the right and responsible thing. Some teenagers (and even some pre-teens) have sex. Shocking but true. They need information about how to do it safely and responsibly. The school board obviously agrees, and put some real thought into the King Middle contraception policy.
It’s too bad the Right has not.
