Rhonda:

The attitudes that led to this problem needed to have been dealt with long, long ago.

The philosophies about sex, responsibility and education have deteriorated to the point where I could produce, with little digging, any number of writings where people claim the biggest problem is that anyone is taking any responsibility of any sort in this area.

Until people stop the idiocy of backing what's "cool" and they start acting with some sense in their heads, this situation can only get much, much worse. There's one group of people who should be criticized relentlessly here, and that's not the group pushing for responsibility.

Posted by Wenalway on October 30, 2007 at 9:56 PM

Why is it that people still think that education and prevention are bad things? Why is it so wrong that we as responsible adults would rather our children learn about sex from friends and television than to have an educator conduct it in a proper way. MTV is not the way to teach sex education.

Posted by chiefillini99 on October 31, 2007 at 4:30 PM

Responsibility, authority, and consequences are the three legged stool of parenthood. We can relinquish our responsibility and authority, but the family will bear the brunt of the consequences.

This issue is not about sex education. It is about health decisions being made not in the light of what is best for a child (and I do mean child) as a whole; but in light of a social agenda, that excludes parental rights and responsibilities.

Posted by Rhonda on November 1, 2007 at 2:24 PM

"Little girls as young as 11 can now be prescribed birth control pills without the consent of a parent in a Maine Middle schoolthis is wrong on so many levels it's hard to know where to begin."

Well in this case, it's just plain wrong -- Rhonda's lead, that is. So it's a good place to begin:

After googling for a link to an actual NEWS article, it turns out that while it is not obvious, there is a guaranteed way that those parents can prevent their children from receiving birth control: Don't sign the form to allow your child treatment at the health center. Once you sign the form, your child's treatment falls under doctor-patient confidentiality (including distribution of birth control). Yes it stinks that you have to go Scientologist on your kid to achieve it, but it is untrue to say that you do not have the choice to deny birth control being given to your child by the school district.

You can debate all you want 'what is best for a child,' but I've found that being open and honest with all the facts and avoiding spinning things (aka, half-truths) for maximum effect works even better with young adults than it does with adults: They see through the hype even better than we do.

Posted by dw on November 1, 2007 at 3:06 PM

Im sorry dw I thought I had provided a good link to the AP report on msn news. Youre absolutely right; you can just not sign the release form. I guess I didnt think of that as a good answer to the problem. But of course, at least at this point you can opt to not sign away your parental rights. I hope parents organize and withdraw consent by the hundreds. Leaving that school system might send a good message as well.

After raising six girls, now aged 11- 28, and having been a young girl once myself, I think I can safely say middle school girls are not young adults. They are impressionable, emotional, and trusting but they are not little adults.

Youre right again, they do need honesty, most certainly. But giving them a pill to protect them from pregnancy is not being honest about the consequences of sexual activity at such a young age. I have to wonder how many of these girls that are supposedly sexually active, are actually being abused.

Remember we are talking about girls who have just entered puberty.

Posted by Rhonda on November 1, 2007 at 8:39 PM

Correction. The link to the story is to CNN.com Health news.

Posted by Rhonda on November 1, 2007 at 9:47 PM

this is incredible. Apparently the school system, like the liberal establishment in general, sees children as primarily seekers of immediate gratification, and when the ways they seek such gratification causes problems, tries to influence them so their gratification-seeking behavior does not cause problems.

The school system has been inundating children with more and more information and guidance about sexual matters and the result: More tennage pregancies, children younger and younger engaging in sexual promiscuity and suffering all the emotional and medical consequences that follow.

School systems need to consider that something has been going on that they have not recognized, that children are not primarily seekers of immediate gratificaion, but human beings in the making, and thus are primarily motivated by a need to love and be loved by other people. When girls become pregnant they may very well have wanted to have a baby out of a need to have someone love and pay attention to them. Adults, parents and teachers, need to teach children how to incorporate the biology of sexuality into that need. Human sexuality is not so much about desire for a sensation as it is desire for a person.

Posted by PaulTRielPhD on November 4, 2007 at 10:36 PM