Run For Your Lives, I Am About To Explode

Nope, not an episode of Heroes or 24. I am incensed and flummoxed and just plain flabbergasted about this news story.

I am going on a rant here, and I may or may not refine it later, but I cannot help myself.

A school system is Portland, Maine is considering whether to give birth control to girls in MIDDLE SCHOOL! Middle school is 6-8 graders. Apparently, they have discovered five girls who are reporting to have had sex. They will do it with a parent's "written permission" as if a 7th grade girl who is dumb enough to get pregnant isn't smart enough to fake a parents note. (UPDATE: The vote was 10-2 to allow the distribution of birth control without parental notification or approval!)

Forget about the debate over birth control. Regardless of what the Catholic Church wants, it happens and there is nothing they can do to stop it. I don't advocate eliminating birth control anyway. I find it to be a responsible action.

Forget the nonsense about with whom the responsibility for birth control rests. It rests with both parties, but girls/women should be smart enough to not trust boys/men and make their own arrangements.

What we have here is the government, who will not allow my children to take a Motrin or Tylenol when they have a period without a parent sending the aforementioned medication to the school nurse, handing out birth control pills and patches to the same child with a fake note from a parent!

Is it the role of government to provide birth control? Do we really want people who can't teach our children geometry or even what decade World War II was fought to determine the best method to prevent my 12-14 year old from getting pregnant? Holy cow, the word GOD isn't allowed in school, but the words sex, and orgasm, and everything else that involves pregnancy is fair game?

"Just say NO" actually works. It prevents drug use, AIDS, teen pregnancy, alcohol related deaths, most lung cancer, boating accidents, stubbed toes, and anything to which you care to apply it. I am not stupid, I know kids have sex and that with each generation the age where innocence is lost becomes younger. What I also know is that we as a society can change this fact. All it would take is a little common sense and the eradication of socially irresponsible liberalism.

My 17 year old says no. I hear the chuckles now, but KNOW that she says no because she has told me that she says no. (Yes, this is the same boneheaded teenager from an earlier post today) She has her eye on college and has had friends who are sexually active and one that became pregnant. She is adamant that she will not be a teen mother, a single mother, or a mother who regrets missing out on her entire life because she traded a lifetime of happiness for 3 minutes of pleasing some boyfriend. She sees her real dad who is 34 and on his 3rd marriage who can't even support himself, much less pay child support for the three families to which he has some obligation because he made stupid decisions early in life.

But this isn't about saying no to sex or drugs. It isn't about whether to have sex ed. It is about a moral and medical decision that should be left to a child and her parents being appropriated by a government school district who thinks they are smarter than parents. You want to provide birth control to my kids through a school nurse? Fine, we can talk about it. But before we do, each teacher can can contribute $20 a pay check to pay for the pills and patches, and understand that it won't happen unless they dispense it when I appear with my child and ASK for it. I bet they are fiscal conservatives with their own money.

We have to say no to this kind of lunacy. We have to make common sense common again.