School Birth Control Backed ; Poll: 67% Favor Access for Students, but the Number Falls for Those Un

Nov 02, 11:22 AM

Current Headlines: By DAVID HENCH Staff Writer

New poll results show that most Americans support providing birth control in a school setting, but less than one-third support doing so without parental consent, which has been one of the most contentious aspects of a policy that the Portland School Committee approved last month for King Middle School.

The controversy prompted a proposal to give King parents final say on whether their child should get reproductive health services at the school's clinic. But the School Committee won't be considering the change anytime soon.

School Committee member Benjamin Meiklejohn said he has withdrawn his proposal to give parents the ability to opt out of reproductive health care for their children when they enroll at the city health clinic housed in the school.

Meiklejohn, who last month was one of two committee members to vote against allowing the clinic to prescribe birth control, said he has withdrawn the parental consent requirement because it lacked support.

"There's just no way it had any chance of succeeding. ... There's no room for compromise with the supermajority," said Meiklejohn. He also has been persuaded to drop a companion proposal to eliminate reproductive health services for anyone under 14, he said, because there may be medical reasons why the services are important beyond whether someone is sexually active.

The committee's decision to allow the clinic to prescribe birth control for sexually active students ignited a national debate on the appropriateness of making contraceptives available in a middle school setting where students are 11 to 15 years old.

A national Associated Press-Ipsos poll, conducted in late October after the Portland School Committee voted 7-2 to let the King health center provide students with full contraceptive services, found that 67 percent of respondents support giving contraceptives to students. In addition, 62 percent said they believe providing birth control reduces the number of teenage pregnancies.

Asked when young people should first be allowed to get birth control, ages 16 to 18 drew the most positive responses, while only one-third chose ages 15 or younger.

However, the poll also showed that most people who support schools distributing contraceptives prefer that they go to children whose parents have consented.

Staffers at the King clinic are prohibited by state law from telling parents about discussions that involve reproductive health, substance abuse and mental health.

The poll also showed that people are closely divided over whether sex education and birth control are more effective than stressing morality and abstinence, and whether giving contraceptives to teenagers encourages them to have sexual intercourse.

The 67 percent in the AP poll who favor providing birth control to students include 37 percent who would limit it to those whose parents have consented, and 30 percent to all students who ask.

Sarah Thompson, a School Committee member who voted for the new King policy, said the national poll does not necessarily represent Portland's views or needs.

"Certainly it's a snapshot of a certain group of people who will respond to surveys," Thompson said.

"It's a different dynamic in different states and also within our own state," she said. "You need to look at the demographics and what's happening and make an informed decision from there."

Poll respondents may be thinking of their own family situation and not considering that some children may be unable to rely on involved parents for guidance, Thompson said.

Preventing some children from accessing reproductive health services - either because of age or lack of consent - ties the health professionals' hands, she said.

"Then you're asking the doctor or professional to turn their back on this child," she said.

Meiklejohn said he was not surprised that a minority of poll respondents thought birth control without consent was OK in a school setting.

"It's really about parental rights and responsibilities," he said. "The relationship of a parent with their child - these are really heady family issues that rise above and beyond liberal and conservative, right and left politics."

Even though he is dropping his minimum-age and parental-consent proposals, Meiklejohn said he will continue to press for a comprehensive explanation for parents of which services will be offered to children of different ages, and what the clinic's responsibilities are under the law regarding notification of authorities and patient confidentiality.

Changes already are being proposed for the health clinic's enrollment form that will give parents more information, he said. "I think Portland by and large is supportive of these services, but I think there's a lot of reticence about things people aren't clear on," he said.

In the poll, people said they favor letting their public schools provide birth control, but they also voiced misgivings that divide them along generational, income and racial lines.

"Kids are kids," said Danielle Kessenger, 39, a mother of three young children from Jacksonville, Fla., who supports providing contraceptives to those who request them. "I was a teenager once, and parents don't know everything, though we think we do."

"It's not the school's place to be parents," said Robert Shaw, 53, a telecommunications company manager from Duncanville, Texas. "For a school to provide birth control, it's almost like the school saying, 'You should go out and have sex.'"

About 1,300 U.S. public schools with adolescent students - less than 2 percent of the total - have health centers staffed by a doctor or nurse practitioner who can write prescriptions, said spokeswoman Divya Mohan of the National Assembly of School-Based Health Care. About one in four of those provide condoms, other contraceptives, prescriptions or referrals, Mohan said.

Less than 1 percent of middle schools and nearly 5 percent of high schools make condoms available for students, said Nancy Brener, a health scientist with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Younger people were likelier to consider sex education and birth control a better way to limit teen pregnancies, as were 64 percent of minorities and 47 percent of whites.

Nearly seven in 10 white evangelicals opted for abstinence, along with about half of Catholics and Protestants.

In addition, 49 percent say providing teens with birth control would not encourage sexual intercourse, and a virtually identical 46 percent said it would.

Though men and women have similar views about whether to provide contraceptives to students, women are likelier than men to think it will not encourage sexual intercourse, 55 percent to 43 percent.

Mirroring the rift that has played out in countless battles in Congress, Democrats were likelier than Republicans to favor freer access to birth control and to have more faith that it reduces teenage pregnancies.

Forty-five percent of Republicans - including 51 percent of GOP women - say birth control should not be provided to any students, compared with 19 percent of Democrats.

In Portland, the Republican City Committee launched an effort to recall School Committee members after the vote.

The poll involved telephone interviews with 1,004 adults from Oct. 23-25. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at:

dhench@pressherald.com

[Sidebar]

SOME POLL RESULTS

67 PERCENT favor giving birth control to students, but that falls to about 33 percent for kids under 16.

37 PERCENT would limit birth control to those with parental consent.

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