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Morning-After Pill Hits NYC Schools

CONTRACEPTION, HEALTH
Adrian Lamb | VB Blogger

In an attempt to bring down the number of unwanted teenage pregnancies, NYC schools have been handing out morning-after pills to students — without parental knowledge or consent.

The Department of Education is giving morning-after pills and other birth-control drugs to students at 13 high schools, The Post has learned.

School nurse offices stocked with the contraceptives can dispense “Plan B” emergency contraception and other oral or injectable birth control to girls without telling their parents — unless parents opt out after getting a school informational letter about the new program.

CATCH — Connecting Adolescents To Comprehensive Health — is part of a citywide attack against the epidemic of teen pregnancy, which spurs many girls — most of them poor — to drop out of school.

The NYC Department of Health records:

TEEN PREGNANCY COMPLICATIONS

7,000 girls under age 17 got pregnant last year citywide

90% of those pregnancies were unplanned

64% were aborted

2,200 became moms by age 17. About 70 percent drop out of school.

What do you think? Is this a good idea or is the system being too presumptive?

For more, read “NYC schools give out morning-after pills to students — without telling parents” on the New York Post’s website.

  • PM

    I think the service should be there to support young women who need that option, and are underage. Many of these women don’t have a parent that is present and active in thier lives, thus getting a consent would be counter productive. I think that a young womens use should be confidential, but well documented within the school, and if thre is an excessive use of plan b there should be a required intervention with the student. Approaching the reasons for the use asking the right questions and having a conversation about the importance of our bodies. I think the answers will range from lack of education about the subject to even perhaps abuse.