Conservative Donnybrook

Can you dig this scene? 

The final notes of “Hey Joe” echo across the farmland where 30,000 to 40,000 tripping and tripped out hippies have gathered. With these notes, the Woodstock Festival has come to an end. The gathered masses begin to head for home. One can imagine that a large proportion of them probably hitched a ride to New York in the first place and intended to do the same on their return.But picture the scene of thousands of tripped out hippies lining the roadways surrounding Max Yasgur’s pasture all with their thumbs stuck out, hoping for a ride. It must have looked like a scene from the Night of the Living Dead. I think any normal motorist would have locked the doors and pushed down a bit on the accelerator to discouorage would-be riders. Perhaps that’s how so many hippies settled in the area, perhaps not. But, the entire New England area is loaded with aging hippies who settled in the area and eventually joined the school boards. One such place is Portland, Maine. 

On October 17, the school board of Portland, Maine voted to make birth control pills available to girls at a local middle school. Just so we remember, middle school was the school you attended when you were between the ages of 11 and 13.  While parents will have to consent to their children’s use of the school health center, any treatment that is given to the student is confidential even from the child’s parents. So parents will never be informed that the school nurse has put their little darling on the pill. And what parent would deny the facilities of the school health center to their children on the chance that some sort of an emergency would arise while the child is at school? It would be irresponsible parenting to do that. But, so would allowing your 11 year-old daughter to start taking the pill and having sexual intercourse.

The birth control pill is a hormone treatment. And at the risk of sounding like one of those annoying drug commercials, using the pill carries certain risks. According to the package insert of a popular birth control pill, the risks associated with using the pill include potentially deadly blood clots, heart attack, stroke, gall bladder disease, liver tumors, cervical cancer, breast cancer, “nausea and vomiting, change in appetite, headache, nervousness, depression, dizziness, loss of scalp hair, rash and vaginal infections.” This is wonderful stuff and we, as a society, have decided to give it to little, 11-year-old, Suzy? I think we have completely lost our minds. What happens when the first little Suzy has a stroke and dies because the school nurse put her on the pill and mom and dad never suspected? It’s not hard to imagine. Big. Big. BIG lawsuit. And, a large jury award to the parents of little Suzy. And the bill will go the taxpayers of Portland, Maine.

But, there is a more important issue here and that is the moral implication of the school sanctioning sexual intercourse among 11 year-olds. In 2000, the school began distributing condoms to students. The mentality is that the kids are going to have sex anyway, so we should make sure they are doing “safely.” And yet, they don’t acknowledge that making the pill available to girls is encouraging them to have sex. But, I was under the impression that the advent of the birth control pill in 1960 was one of the main ingredients leading to the sexual revoultion. So if giving women the pill in 1960 emboldened them to have more sex, then why won’t giving girls the pill in 2007 embolden them to have more sex?

Middle schoolers do not have the requisite maturity level to enter into contracts, to maintain a checking account, to drive or any number of other adult activities. Sexual activity is far more complicated than any of those by a factor of 10 (at least!). What makes us think that encouraging 11 year-olds to have more sex will not end in disaster for everyone involved?

It is an outrage. This decision by the school board of Portland, Maine is an attack on parents’ authority and upon their fundamental right to make decisions regarding the care, custody and control of their children. And, it is a clear sign that we have ceased to be a good nation. Parents in Portland: When little Suzy comes home from her 6th grade classes complaining of feeling nauseous, you might want consdier the possibility that little Johnny has been enjoying your little Suzy in a way you would rather he didn’t.