Well, in the Land of Lincoln, the great state of Illinois, that’s the way it is, folks. School nurses are not allowed to take responsibility for students’ medication–it’s the parents’ job. You can take the bottle of medicine to school and give it to the nurse, and she won’t do a thing with it. She won’t even give it to the kid so the kid can take her own Midol.
And yes, parents do rush to school to give their kids antibiotics. The diabetic kids learn to give themselves their own insulin.
Eh, Sven, IMO a 15-year-old is not capable of making a rational decision to have a baby. Her hormones basically make that decision for her. Having recently seen an actual 15-year-old girl in action under these circumstances, I can attest to this [sigh]. Fortunately, her parents were there and on top of the situation, which is why I am not speaking to you now as “Grandma Goose”.
One of the possible side affects of RU 486 is excessive bleeding which could make a blood transfusion necessary.
True, but you’re talking about a completely different drug, MGibson. RU486 is available by prescription only, and must be used under a doctor’s supervision for the reason you stated. AFAIK, the morning-after pill poses no such risk.
Gee, in Minnesota (for high schoolers, at least), it almost seemed like a “war on drugs” sort of thing. Sure, it would be much easier to keep that bottle of antibiotics in your locker and take it yourself at the proper time, but no, then you would have drugs at school and you could be passing those pills out to your friends (to clear up their acne, I guess), and we couldn’t have that, no sirree!
I thought the topic mentioned morning after pills. I'm not aware of any morning after pill that isn't ru486. If there is please let me know. I don't keep track of the latest and greatest in medical technology.
They are a different drug. I’ll have a look to see what they are using in the UK but from the descriptions in some of the sites I came across I doubt it is RU486.
The morning after pill that this thread refers to is basically a triple dose of birth control pills. You take it within, I believe, 72 hours of sexual contact and it induces a period, getting rid of any fertalized eggs hanging around the uterous (which would be unattached to the lining at that point, I believe). Doctors have long been prescribing it on the sly, but recently the FDA legitimized it. Now there is a movement to make it an over the counter drug.
RU486 is a very different drug, that chemically induces abortion and is rightly used only under a doctor’s purvue.
Ok, I got’cha. I hadn’t ever heard of the morning after pill in regards to anything but RU486. Even though technically RU486 wasn’t a morning after pill.
I have no objection to the morning after pill or RU486. I still don’t think that schools should be in the business of providing drugs or medication without the consent of parents.
Just want to throw in a couple legal points here. First, since taking the morning-after pill could be considered a typeof abortion, it’s quite possible that it would fall under the parental-notification acts of many states. The AG here in Texas came out with an opinion last fall stating that parents must be notified before a minor can be prescribed RU-486, and he’s enough of a right-winger that I’m sure he’d say the same thing about the morning-after pill.
Second, note that it’s only parental notification that’s required, at least in Texas. It would be a brave girl indeed who defied her anti-abortion parents and took the pill or had some other kind of abortion procedure. But as I read the law here, that is still her option.
Relief, yes; not life changing, no. Most women I’ve talked to that have had an abortion (and I must admit that it is not a large number) have agonized over the decision and some still carried a lot of guilt regarding the morality of what they did. Were they relieved? Sure. Was it a life-changingly hard experience? Yes.
I think your statement is a little too generalized, making it sound easier than what I’ve seen it typically to be.
A morning after pill is not an abortion. Period. It is about as similar to an abortion as wearing a condom. It is no different than forgetting to take your birth control pills for a day or three and loading up afterwards. There is no proof of pregnancy, nor of fertilization of the egg. There is no embryo, no zygote, no nothing. Eggs haven’t even attached themselves to the uterine lining yet. Under no circumstances should parental notification laws govern the use of the morning after pill.
The operative words in my post were “could be considered,” Maeglin. Talk to your friendly local right-to-lifer and you will, I am sure, quickly find out that many people do consider the morning-after pill to be a kind of abortion. And even I, an ardent supporter of reproductive rights, recognize that there is a substantive difference between preventing fertilization in the first place (your condom comparison) and interfering with an already fertilized egg so as to prevent its further development.
As a matter of policy, I do not believe that parental notification laws should not apply to morning-after pills. But I don’t get to enforce the law, and many anti-abortion prosecutors and AG’s will enforce it according to their own policy preferences.
Having said that, I note that the parental notification law in my own state defines “abortion” in a way that requires a “pregnancy.” So I suppose you could argue (as I would) that there’s no pregnancy until implantation, so the act does not apply to morning-after pills. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t bet the farm on that interpretation if I was insane enough to be handing out pills in school, especially since the act defines “fetus” as “an individual human organism from fertilization to birth.”
This, of course, devolves into a chicken-or-egg? argument. If she knows she can get the pills at school, why would she talk to her parents?
Again, I strongly disagree with this and think it highlights what is to me the fundamental problem with this sort of thing – the assumption that the government can and will parent better than parents can and will. To say I object to this assumption strenuously is an understatement. By the way, being childless, I’m not a great mom, but I’m not a crappy mom, either.
Thanks, but see above.
Then we just have to agree to disagree, because I will never be in favor of the government stepping in to parent my child for me, either on the grounds that I won’t do it correctly, or on the grounds that while I might, many other parents will not. The government has no business whatsoever in my daughter’s reproductive health or choices. To the extent that she needs assistance and guidance, it should come from me as her parent, not from the school nurse who “thinks she knows her” even tough she’s the nurse for hundreds of kids.
You’ve got me, but I hardly think that the poor decision of one or two or a handful of girls justifies stripping parents of their right to guide their girls through such a difficult situation.
I’m sure that, given the choice, her parents would have much preferred to have raised a child who would not commit such a horrific act as to murder her own new-born child.
ROBODUDE says:
YOU are the one arguing that they are making “adult choices” with “adult consequences,” so you tell me.
I love this. YOU have no problem with abortion or contraception or morning-after pills, so you think it’s a good thing to make them available to every child, even if their parents strongly object to them on moral reasons. Can you not see that for the usurpation of parental authority it obviously is?
EVEN SVEN says:
The parents are no more “forcing her” to have the baby than the school is “forcing her” to take the morning-after pill. The point is that teenagers are generally NOT equipped to make such enormous decisions independently; they need the support and guidance of adults. From whom should that support and guidance come? The parents, or the schools?
No I don’t think that is what is being said at all. It is just that sometimes kids will not tell parents or cannot tell parents about these things. Remember these problems already exist. The UK has the highest pregnancy rate in western Europe. It is hoped that by having these pills available in schools it will help in the lowering of these rates.
Again you’re right about the parent side of this but you will agree that all kids don’t go to their parents about this. If a kid is having sex and the condom bursts (which has happened to me when I was 16) they are as likely IMO to just sweat it out and hope that a pregnancy doesn’t occur as to go to a parent. Also it isn’t as simple as the nurse just making a decision.
From the BBC link I gave in the OP
The article also states that the head would most likely go to the governing body of the school. I don’t know how this would turn out IRL as there is only a 72 window with the pill but it isn’t a case of one person making the decision.
Also the kid can just go to the Pharmacy a get the pill or get a friend to do it. There is no control whatsoever in this situation. I would rather a kid go to a trained nurse who has a interest in the decision than a faceless guy/lady behind a counter.
[quoteIt is just that sometimes kids will not tell parents or cannot tell parents about these things. Remember these problems already exist. The UK has the highest pregnancy rate in western Europe. It is hoped that by having these pills available in schools it will help in the lowering of these rates.[/quote]
I realize this is the rationale behind it, I just don’t happen to agree with it. If you want to lower the pregnancy rate in the country, I would suggest the better idea is to educate the children and make birth control available to them with their parents’ knowledge and not if the parents strenuously object. It is doing it without informing the parents that bothers me. The school does not have the right to give any medication, drug, or supplement to my child without my knowledge and consent – not even a vitamin.
Sure, but this scheme seems to me to foster an atmosphere where no kid will. Why should she, if she can go to the nurse instead? It is not the nurse’s place, or the school head’s place, to handle such intense and personal issues as potential pregnancy.
That is their decision to make, I guess. It does not in my mind justify taking away my perogative as a parent to watch over my child’s health and reproductive future, and placing it in the hands of the schools. If the government feels the parents are not likely to handle the situation “appropriately,” then they should either devote themselves to educating the parents or reevaluate why their idea of “approariate handling” should override the parent’s.
Forgive me if having to okay it with the principal (who also has nothing invested in the child and no right to parent her) does not in my mind make it any more okay.
Well, you will not be surprised to hear that I don’t think kids should get medication from pharmacies without their parents’ permission, either, so that doesn’t change my opinion, I’m afraid.
Fair enough Jodi. I think we will have to agree to disagree.
I also would want my children coming to me and would hope I created a atmosphere of trust strong enough for them to do it even with these pills freely available but I’d rather a kid not telling me and taking the pill than coming to me and telling me they’re pregnant.
I know I would have wanted the option open to me when I was young. That would never have happened in Catholic Ireland, hell we’ve only got condoms in bars within the last decade.
I agree that education is the best way to fight this problem but kids are always going to be kids.
Probably for the same reason I told my mom I’m gay eight months before I told my dad: because I trust my mom and her discretion and at that time relied on her counsel. Not so with my dad.
IIRC women under 16 in the UK can already get birth control free through their family doctor and without their parent’s knowledge (remember we have the National Health Service so fees are involved and prescriptions are free for minors). This was a big deal some years back when a home-educating mother challenged it in court. I am pretty sure she lost in the end. The upshot is that all that is changing is where the pills are made available and not the fact of availability.
If they forbid her to recieve a morning-after pill or an abortion, they most certainly are.
Reality check: the government “usurps parental authority” all the time when it takes children from parents determined to be negligent or abusive. You seem to have conveniently ignoted the part where I said(pay attention please):
PARENTAL AUTHORITY DOES NOT GIVE PARENTS THE RIGHT TO HARM THEIR CHILDREN
Parents have as much of a right to deny their children abortions, contraceptives or morning-after pills as Jehovah’s Witnesses have to let their children die of blood loss.
I believe that parents should get involved whenever possible, but I think that the notifying the parents should be left to the children. There is no way for a pharmacist or a school nurse to tell the difference between a child who is merely too ashamed to talk to her parents and a child whose parents are religious zealots who would rather let her child (and the child’s child) live a horrible life with virtually no possibility of a meaningful future for either of them than let her take a morning-after pill.
