Many are outraged by the action of the King School’s health center of Portland, Maine.  There, educators are supplying prescription-only contraceptive medication - “the pill or the patch or any other reproductive health care,” according to the Portland Press Herald - to middle school children.  Parents do not give permission - indeed, they never find out.  Outrageous it is, because this is something the private sector should be doing, not the school board.   Consider these facts.

Private industry can distribute contraceptive devices to children more efficiently and with lower cost than this government-funded boondoggle. We don’t want overpaid, tax-supported bureaucrats encouraging young children to be sexually active before their bodies and emotions are ready to handle it.  Business can do it better, and pay for it too.
Think about just one lost opportunity here - of so many.  Giris who want birth control in 7th or 8th grade are very special young people.  They are likely to be victimized by boys and often by men, who force them to have sex.  They are likely to be anxious about their popularity.  They are likely to be depressed or self-destructive.  To the School Board, these are just children who should be encouraged to enjoy the sex that is forced upon them, in acts that are, from the point of view of the law, rape. And we can all sympathize with how hard it is for the King School personnel to deal with the complaints, the tears, the unhappy children, the whining.  But these girls are so much more than victims of statutory rape: they constitute a hard-to-reach market segment which the Portland school authorities are helping to create - but haven’t a clue how to monetize.

Please, Portland educators. I’ll concede that you know how to harm children, how to cause more pregnancies, more STDs, more emotional damage, how to put more pressure on the most vulnerable to conform, how to create in these children a sense of helplessness and friendlessness.  But you are hopeless when it comes to taking advantage of the damage you cause in a way that benefits the taxpayers of your city. Come, let us reason together.

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