Maine Middle School to Start Distributing Birth Control

A middle school in Portland, Maine, has opted to start distributing birth control - as in the pill. Parents will need to give students permission to receive services from the school health center, but will not be able to find out whether or not students are receiving the pill - all treatment information will be confidential. The school in question, King Middle School, has been experiencing a large number of student pregnancies, and is trying to reduce the numbers.

I grew up in Maine, and know it to be an extremely polarized state, politically. I can only imagine the clash of liberal and conservative going on in Portland right now. The thing is, I'm about as liberal as they come, and I'm not sure how I feel about this. The age-old argument of distributing condoms in schools doesn't phase me in the slightest. I'm all for it, and I truly believe that the arguments of the practices proponents - that students are going to have sex anyway, and that schools should enable students to protect themselves - are far more valid than the conservative idea that making condoms available actually encourages risky behavior. I find myself wondering if the conservatives making the argument were ever teens themselves... risky behavior is the name of the game. I don't know what it is about this situation that feels different to me.

For one, I guess, I have a hard time thinking about sexual behavior in middle school. Sure, I spend time with middle school students, and I fully believe that they are increasingly putting themselves at risk. When I was in middle school, though, this was less common. Maybe that's part of my issue, and likely the issues others are having in this regard. The other thing that rankles is that this is THE PILL. The school is no longer handing out a chemically inert sausage-wrapper, but materials intended to drastically change the natural chemical processes in the human body. There are risks here, and some of them are medically valid. I know the pill is pretty safe. I'm a dude, and I could probably take the damn thing with little effect, but it's a drug, and something about a school handing those out just gives me the wiggins.

All of this considered, though, teen pregnancy can be incredibly destructive, both to the teens involved and their families, but to whole communities, and on a large enough scale, to the country itself. One also needs to consider the life of the babies being born to teens. These babies deserve parents who can care for them, and in 7th grade, there's little chance of that. Good parenting can go a long way toward helping teens to protect themselves, but there's only so much you can do. Mistakes get made, for sure, and as adults, shouldn't we do what we can to minimize their impacts? Some students don't even have parents, or the ones they do have made mistakes of their own, and don't have the parenting skills needed in order to provide strong guidance. Lastly, middle schoolers are actively trying to develop their independence, and may not be willing to talk with their parents about sexual behavior.

Ultimately, if my daughter's school offered these services, I'd certainly allow her to use them, and would support the school in offering them, but something doesn't feel right here. The world is changing, folks, and I'm just trying to keep up.