Scholls giving morning after pills to underage girls

Great Debates
1

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1106000/1106112.stm

In a effort to fight the major problem of underage pregnancy some schools in the UK are running pilot schemes. They will give these pills out without the parents knowledge in some cases.

Me I have to say that while it wouldn’t be my first choice there is a very big problem in parts of the UK (and here in Ireland aswell). It does leave itself open to accusations of not pushing the message of safe sex home. I hope this initiative goes hand in hand with a lot more open and frank education in how to look after yourself in the modern world.

All in all I’m for it though.

2

Just another arguement for homeschooling your child.

3

Okay, first I would want to know, what’s a “state school”? Is that like a reform school, a “Borstal”, or is it like a school for the mentally retarded?

I know that in the UK, “public” school means what we would call a “private” school, meaning a waiting list and having to pay large sums of money for tuition, whereas U.S. “public” schools are open to all residents and funded by tax dollars [sigh]. Also, I believe a UK “private” school isn’t what we would call a “private school”, either, that it just means a school that isn’t run by The State. Which brings us back to my question. What’s a “state school”?

I would say that a school should not be allowed to give any kind of birth control pills to its students, whether it’s the regular kind or the morning-after kind. Parents have the right, nay, the duty, to know what’s going on with their children, especially where it involves something as important as pregnancy and babies.

However, if we’re talking about a home for the mentally retarded, with girls who may not understand what it means to let him put that funny thing in there, then yes, I think they ought to hand them out, but they should at least check with the parents first. But usually, if your daughter is in a home like that, you’ve probably had her tubes tied anyway. I have a friend who’s in exactly that situation.

Schools here in the U.S. won’t even allow the nurse to give out aspirin, insulin, allergy medication, migraine pills, antibiotics, anything. Parents have to come to school to personally give the kid his lunchtime medication. I can’t imagine U.S. school nurses giving out morning-after birth control pills.

Is home-schooling legal in the UK?

4

AFAIK DDG UK state schools fit your description of US “public” schools. I’m sure somebody from the UK will be along to correct me if I’m wrong.

UK pharmacies are going to start giving the morning after pill without perscriptions to over 16’s so the kids could get it one way or the other. I think this is being tried because at least if they go to the school nurse there is a hope that the kids can get support and advise rather than trying to deal with it themselves which happens quite a bit.

I agree that in a perfect world parents should be totally involved in the lives and decisions of their kids but this often doesn’t happen and leads to horrible consequences in some cases…

5

OK, I apologize for being off topic but when I saw the thread title I thought it was referring to Dr Scholls.

I had visions of little pill packets coming with every set of keds or something…

6

Teenagers ought to have private ways to get birth control pills for the same reason that they ought to have someone they can tell they’re gay without their parents finding out: because if their parents will find out, then the kids will most likely keep their yap shut if their parents are conservative, until it’s too late.

7

Conselling and a person to talk to are not quite the same as providing medical care and pharmaceuticals.

I see the obvious benefits in providing teenaged girls with the morning-after pill, but no matter what the benefits, it’s quite valid to be nervous of schools overstepping their mandate. They aren’t hospitals, they aren’t staffed by doctors, and it’s not in their job description.

And please; schools do not exist solely for the purpose of sheilding kids from the Evil Conservatives. I’m sure a lot of less-than-conservative parents would not be thrilled to find out old Mrs. Grundy is handing out prescriptions to the kids.

8

I think this is a good thing. I also think that traditional birth control should be made easier to young women to access.

These people are doing adult actions that have very adult consequences. We need to give them adult options. Ideally, yes, the parent should be supportive and guide them through. That however, is not a reality. I reality these kids face getting yelled at, hit, booted from the house, forced into marriage, forced never to see the guy involved again, or forced to have children they don’t want and can’t raise. These bad things can occur even if the pregnancy is the result of a rape. I’ve seen it happen, and it isn’t pretty.

My healthplan (Kaiser) won’t let parents into general checkups and the like after the kid is sixteen. The doctor can be a trusted adult whom you can tell the truth to and not face value judgements and other consequences. I think this is a good policy, as it helps young adults to understand their body and decisions. I’d like to see schools get in on the action.

9

But I’m agin this. You have the argument that the government is overstepping its bounds, you have the argument that parents generally do know what is best for their kids, and you have the argument that sixteen y.o.'s generally don’t know what they are doing.

matt, what about this scenario? A girl wants to take the morning-after pill or have an abortion, but her parents, raving liberals like myself that they are, know their child, and know that she won’t be able to deal with the psychological ramifications. The government’s judgment should replace theirs? My Maw and Paw Kettle know me a lot better than the clerk at the DMV ('course, lacking a uterus, I’m not the best example :D)

Sua

10

And how many kids arn’t ready for the ramifications of abortion (especially because when the abortion is volentary there are very few negative ramifications- abortion is rarely a life-changeingly hard experience- more often it is a few cramps and a bunch of relief) that are ready to cahnge their entire plan for life and have and raise a kid?

11

No opinions here, just confirming that you’re right, yojimbo. State schools are publically-funded; private and public schools are privately funded by parents paying fees.

12
  1. Kids are immature
  2. Kids are incredibly horny
  3. Children should not have children!!

Its not the best solution. Maybe there is no best solution. Nonetheless, I throw the full weight of my support behind it.

13

Where is this? At my schools, that was basically what the school nurse was for. If you had a doctor-prescribed medication (or, techincally, an over-the-counter medication, but this was at least 7 years ago, so things weren’t quite as nuts as they might be today–they generally looked the other way on Advil and Midol and things like that) in the original bottle (you were supposed to get an extra from the pharmacist if you needed a bottle at home as well), you had to give it to the school nurse and stop in her office when you needed your medication. They didn’t want you taking it yourself at school, which is what I’m sure would happen if the nurse wouldn’t give it to you–hard to imagine dozens of parents rushing to school on their lunch breaks to give a high schooler an antibiotic or an insulin shot.

However, the nurse certainly couldn’t prescribe medication, and may not have been able to give you aspirin, etc. that you or your parents didn’t bring in…I can’t remember.

I can’t imagine school nurses in the US giving out morning-after pills, either, since they wouldn’t be prescribed by the students’ doctors. However, in those schools with full-blown clinics and real doctors, I wouldn’t be against it. Those clinics might be a student’s only source of medical care, since they are generally found in poor, inner-city schools. I think there are a lot less “psychological ramifications” involved with the morning-after birth control pill than with RU-486 or a surgical abortion, since the morning-after pill simply brings on a period and is taken well before any possible pregnancy could be confirmed. Psychologically, it would be as if the girl had waited, had not been pregnant, and her period came two weeks or so later…most likely a huge sigh of relief.

14

I don’t see how there could be any real psychological ramifications with the morning-after pill since IIRC, the pill must be taken within 72 hours of the sexual encounter, well before what’s inside her becomes anything even close to human.

15

EVEN SVEN says:

This disregards the fact that some underage kids are not mature enough to handle “adult options” without the advice and support of adults. Any child can have sex (an adult action), and sex can lead to pregnancy (an adult consequence); that doesn’t mean the participants are automatically adults.

Hm. I don’t think you have any right to assume that this would happen. And this reflects an underlying belief that I strongly object to – the belief that children will not be properly raised by their parents, or have their problems properly handled by their parents, so it is not only proper but necessary for the government (in the form of the schools) to step in. In my case, if my daughter needed a morning-after pill, I would almost certainly assist her in procuring it, and then deal appropriately with all the other fall-out – including a frank talk on the consequences of sex, the need for personal responsibility, and the subject of birth control. It is ridiculous to say that if I object to a school usurping this role – which is fundamentally the role of a parent – then I would hit my child or throw her out of the house. Of course, this does not even touch upon the thorny subject of parents who for religious reasons believe contraception and/or abortion are prohibited, and who would be justly outraged to find the school providing such (to them, morally indefensible) services to their children without their consent.

I am fairly socially liberal myself (if fiscally conservative), but if my child went to a school with such a policy, I would have her out of that school in a heartbeat.

So put me in the “no” column.

16

Yeah right…

Once a kid gets laid we should give them a drivers license, let them vote, drink beer, own guns, serve in the military etc…etc…
Somehow I missed that part in my education where sex = responsibility.
I am pro-life, so I have a different POV than many of you in here, but I think it is the height of irresponsibility to push decisions on a child and tell them it is OK to leave their parents out of it. I also reject the notion out of hand that abortion is not traumatic, and that taking a morning after pill is a no-brainer decision.

I’m not looking to debate the life Vs. death aspect of the pill, I just think it is crazy to pretend there are no issues, and if there are, then only kooks and fringe elements could have them.

17

I support this.

IIRC, the morning-after pill is basically the same as taking three birth control tablets. I can’t see the need for a doctor to prescribe this, since just about any one can get on the pill without medical complications. It’s not a dangerous drug, nor one that can be abused for narcotic pleasure.

Secondly, if a girl feels the need to go to the school nurse for the morning-after pill, she feels that for some reason she cannot talk to her parents. You sound like a great mom ** Jodi, ** but I don’t think you should assume that every mother is as caring or supportice as you are. Good mothers, it seems, are the minority today.

Yes, some parents, for religious reasons, would be outraged that their child is taking the morning-after pill, but what about the consequences to the child? What about the consequences to the baby that the child might be forced to have?

Perhaps the parents wouldn’t even consider the idea of taking their child to the gyno to put her on the pill to prevent a pregnancy. She loves her boyfriend, however, and in a moment of passion, things happen. The condom breaks. She panics. Now what? She’s not ready to marry . . . she wants to go to college. She’s not ready for a baby . . . she’s only seventeen. She can’t talk to her parents.

If she’s wanting the pill in the first place apparently, she is not as religious as they, and shouldn’t be made to ruin her life because of their persuasion. If she’s trying to get it from the school nurse, then, for some reason, any reason, she feels that she cannot tell her parents.

Some teens cannot talk to their parents. I knew quite a few girls like that, because I went to a private religious school. Despite the teachings of their parents, these girls gave in to their human urges, and either ended up weeping quietly as they were marched down the aisle by grim parents, or sneaking off to clinics. One girl, out of fear of getting caught, even tried a do-it-yourself abortion which sent her to the hospital. These are not happy turn-outs, and I can’t help but think of all of the pain that might have been spared these girls had the morning-after pill been available.

Jodi, if your daughter can talk to you about anything then you have, indeed, been a wonderful mother, and you should be lauded for it. But if I were a parent, and a parent of a daughter who also felt she could talk to me, I still would want her friends, who might not be so lucky, to have access to something that might prevent them from ruining their lives. I would want my OWN daughter to have access to the pill as well, because I would want her to be able to prevent a pregnancy which might destroy all of her dreams if she felt, for any reason, unable to approach me with it. I would hope and pray that my daughter would be able to have a heart-to-heart discussion with me, but if she were afraid, I would want her to be able to go to someone . . . even if it were only the school nurse.

Some teens do have understanding, loving mothers, but are still afraid to approach them and confess that they’re having sex and may be pregnant, out of fear of the parent’s anger, or dissaproval. They may be afraid such an admission might ruin their relationship with their mother who has tried her best to raise them right. Teens don’t always think clearly in these situations.

Think of Amy Grossburg, the teen who made headlines years back. She was raised in a loving, supportive, normal family, yet felt in neccessary to hide her pregnancy. Why? What was her logic? What would make a bright young girl with an even brighter future do such a thing? We may never know, but she and her boyfriend threw the baby away, and hid the evidence. I’m sure that given the choice, her parents would have much preferred that she had taken the morning-after pill, even without their knowledge.

18

Jodi:

This disregards the fact that some underage kids are not mature enough to handle “adult options” without the advice and support of adults. Any child can have sex (an adult action), and sex can lead to pregnancy (an adult consequence); that doesn’t mean the participants are automatically adults.

If they can’t be trusted with a choice, how can they be trusted with a child?

Of course, this does not even touch upon the thorny subject of parents who for religious reasons believe contraception and/or abortion are prohibited, and who would be justly outraged to find the school providing such (to them, morally indefensible) services to their children without their consent.

So it will be harder for them to force their children to have the babies? I, for one, see that as a good thing. It is almost universally believed that parental authority does not give parents the right to harm their children, and becoming a mother before one is capable of handling such responsibility is almost invariably very harmful to both the child and the child’s child. As elucidator said, children should not have children.

19

Okay, let’s say I am wrong and it is not right for the government to right the wrongs of bad parenting.

This issue falls outside the realm of parenting.

The parents don’t have to have the baby, the girl does. Therefor it is fundamentally the girl’s decision. No woman or girl should be forced to have an unwanted child because of someone else’s beleif system that they do not neccesarily subscribe to themselves. Pregnancy can change one’s life completely, and it should be the pregnant person’s choice how to deal with that.

20

**

One of the possible side affects of RU 486 is excessive bleeding which could make a blood transfusion necessary.

**

That still doesn’t grant the state to perscribe medicine to my child without my knowledge or permission. This goes way over the role public schools need to be taking. They’re suppose to educate not medicate.

**

It certainly isn’t up to the schools to make these decisions. If I ever found out a school authorized medicine for my child in a non emergency situation I’d sue their pants off. It simply isn’t their place to make those kinds of decisions.

Why not allow schools to authorize prozak or ritalin perscriptions as well?

Marc