2007 October 24 | Mama Divas

October 24, 2007

Have you heard about this yet?

When the Portland, Maine, School Committee voted 7-2 Wednesday night to make birth control pills available to middle school girls as young as 11, the response provided the latest evidence that adults still have trouble talking about sex with each other, much less with our kids. The debate was passionate, as you’d expect over an issue that touches so deeply our concerns about what our kids know and do — and when — and the messages we send them. To school officials and public health advocates who favored the measure, this was a question of confronting reality. Five of the 134 students who visited King Middle School’s health center last year admitted they were sexually active; in the last four years, Portland’s three middle schools reported 17 pregnancies, not counting miscarriages or unreported pregnancies that ended in abortions…. READ THE REST AT TIME.COM

Here are a few more links to news articles that cover this issue:

The New York Times – Not All Are Pleased at Plan to Offer Birth Control at Maine Middle School
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution – SAT doesn’t stand for Sex Aptitude Test
USA Today – Others not likely to follow school’s contraception move
TheSpoof.com (satire/parody – entirely fictitious!) – “Today Spermicidal Sponge” introduces “The Sponge” Bob Square Pants birth control for Middle School girls
Boston.com (Your Connection to the Boston Globe) – Baltimore middle schoolers have long had access to contraceptives

How do you feel about this? Which side are you on, and why? Are you on any side at all? How would you react, if you have a middle school aged child and this was happening in your school district?

Leave a comment, or leave me a link to the post where you responded to this issue, and I’ll post the link to your reaction here!