Birth Control to 11 year olds

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I just read the article this morning that the Maine junior high is going to start offering contraceptives to their 11, 12 and 13 year old children. If it wasn't so shocking I would this that this is some kind of hoax because sane adults would try to discourage kids that aren't even teenagers yet from having sex rather than supply them with contraception. Now keep in mind, we aren't talking about condoms here but giving girls the pill or the patch.

Wait a second, the school nurse cannot distribute an aspirin or Tylenol because it is unsafe and they don't want to take the legal liability. But they are willing to pump an 11 year old girl's body full of hormones that can have side effects. I know many adult women who have a time adjusting to birth control in the weeks leading up to their wedding.

What bothers me most is that the school CANNOT tell the parents that they are distributing birth control pills. Don't the parents have a right to know what medicine their child is receiving by a medical professional? Don't parents have a right to know what their kids are doing that they need birth control at age 11. We are talking about kids who legally cannot consent to have sex in the first place.

Furthermore, we have seen that at least some of these kids who are getting pregnant so young do so because they are being abused by someone who is much older. In order to protect the children from emotional and psychological harm isn't it in the best interest of the child and the parent to discuss this and decide?

We’ve taken the erroneous idea that they are going to do it anyway so we need to give them contraception to its logical absurdity. As a society we have bought into the idea that it is inherently immoral to tell a kid "no" or "stop doing that." Furthermore, we assume that kids cannot be influenced by positive moral teaching and are going to do it anyway. We also undermine any structured moral teaching given by family and church when we tell them that these services are available. Beyond that, we end up teaching them that other 11, 12 and 13 year olds are having sex when we tell them these services are available.

The article says only a small percentage of kids are having sex at that age. I believe that national statistics would bear that out. However, as we have become sexualized as a nation and have shielded kids from less and less adult material they have an even greater awareness of sex at a younger and younger age. However, when a teacher or health official tells them that these services are available, they not only are speaking to the small percentage of kids but to the larger percentage who are not engaging in sexual activity as a child.

Suddenly there is an awareness and curiosity of who is doing this coupled with the natural curiosity that is stirred within themselves. Ah, but it might be argued that it is only the kids who come to the health office that will be told these services are available. But that won’t do either. If you wait until they come to you then it is already too late because they won’t come to you if they don’t know these items are available. The only other reason they will come to you is if it is too late and they are already pregnant. So you must inform everyone in advance which does the very thing that I disagree with in informing everyone about the sexual activity of a few and stirring curiosity.

Let me make one other observation that is at least as controversial as my first point, what we are missing in this society is a sense of morals and a sense of stigma towards those who violate these moral standards. People are motivated to do right or avoid wrong by two forces, one external and the other internal. The external one is the expectations that have been placed on them and the fear of consequences for doing the wrong. The internal one is a sense of morals and values that have been instilled and cultivated over the person’s life.

We have removed all sense of shame and guilt from any behavior (because we have no absolute standards only personal “values”) and then we don’t teach any enduring morals that we believe that people are able to strive toward and keep. We don’t want to teach any values that might smack of religion or traditional morals so we take the cop out way and just hand out condoms.

We miss the point of previous generations that some actions brought shame upon myself and my family. We have a "guilt free" society that doesn't like the idea that others might look down on a person's behavior or, heaven forbid, say that a certain action is wrong. Well, 11 year olds having sex is wrong, dead wrong and someone needs to stand up and say something. The people who want to give out contraception rather than informing the parents ought to be ashamed of themselves.

We put Band-Aids on cancerous melanoma rather than getting to the root issue and dealing with the disease. The moral decay and our inability to articulate moral values in our society has brought us to this new low point of giving 11 year old girls the pill rather than redirecting their lives to something more fruitful and productive.