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By Tim Pugmire
April 6, 1999
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RealAudio 3.0 |
The Saint Paul School Board will let its high schools decide individually
whether to provide birth control directly to students.
Board members met until early this morning debating the controversial proposal
to allow health clinics in those schools to distribute contraceptives. In a
hastily-conceived compromise, parents, teachers and students at each school will
now vote on the issue.
HEALTH CLINICS HAVE OPERATED inside Saint Paul High Schools
for 25 years, providing prescriptions and vouchers to students for contraceptives. Teens must
go to locations off school grounds to get the birth-control pills, condoms and
other products. But clinic officials say many of the students they see never use
the vouchers, and they're concerned about increased cases of teen pregnancy and
sexually-transmitted disease. Carol White is Executive Director of Health Start,
the non-profit group that runs the clinics in Saint Paul high schools.
White: After studying the evidence, we feel confident that dispensing birth-control prescriptions and condoms at our clinics will increase our ability to prevent teen pregnancies and sexually-transmitted diseases and will not cause any harmful consequences.White and other supporters say more students will use the products if they are provided in the schools. Central High School student Leorra Maccabee told board members that easier access to contraceptives will promote responsibility, not sex.
Maccabee: Many teenagers are often embarrassed to go to the clinics and uncomfortable and scared about maneuvering around their parents to find the time and the money to get the birth control at drug stores. By allowing the distribution of birth control in public schools, you are sensitively acting to protect the health and safety of Saint Paul's teenagers.But Health Start's proposal triggered a firestorm of criticism. Many concerned parents attended the school-board hearing to voice their opposition. Barbara Anderson says providing birth control and other contraceptives is a moral issue as well as a health issue.
Anderson: When a school district chooses to dispense birth-control pills and condoms to kids, it is taking a stand that sex does not have moral parameters. That sex is okay anytime, anyplace, as long there is - quote, unquote - safer-sex protection.Anderson and other parents urged school officials to do more to promote sexual abstinence among students. Erica Roland of the Minnesota Christian Coalition says abstinence is the behavioral standard the school district should demand of its students.
Roland: Passing out contraceptives to teens by authority figures in public schools reinforces the MTV media-type message that says everyone is doing it, it's okay. It gives students a license to have sex, even when it's best to just say "no. "The conflicts between morality and public health were repeated throughout the public testimony. Before it was over, 32 people testified against and 22 testified in favor of the proposal. Debate among school board members reflected a similar division. Vice Chairman Greg Filice, a physician who specializes in infectious diseases, spoke in favor of the distribution.
Filice: We're not only protecting the young person in front of us, but if that young person gets a sexually-transmitted disease, they can pass it to others. So, it's sort of like immunization. You immunize a person to prevent them from getting polio because you also realize that that protects other people who may not get immunized or are protected.Board members initially lined up four-to-two in favor of the recommendation. But opponent Tom Conlon turned the tables by successfully amending the measure. That amendment requires each high school to put the issue to a vote of its parents, teachers and students. Two-thirds approval would be needed to allow distribution of contraceptives. Conlon was pleased with the outcome.
Conlon: I think the parents and the community won and it was a compromise. I think is was good discussion. I didn't like everything that we got, at the same time, they didn't. So, I think it's a compromise that is good political process. I think there's a lot of winners.But the early morning vote left the controversy intact and questions unanswered about what happens next. District administrators must now iron out the logistics of the plan. It's unclear when the school votes will take place.
Tim Pugmire covers education issues for Minnesota Public Radio. You can reach him at tpugmire@mpr.org.
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