NYC Schools Put Ideology First

The headline reads "NYC schools give out morning-after pills to students — without telling parents."1 The article tries to give the school system and the "Connecting Adolescents To Comprehensive Health" (CATCH) program a fair representation, citing the fact that the school system claims opt-out forms were sent to all of the parents. But when at least one of the parents quoted claims not to have received such a letter, I think the headline ends up saying it all.

This one hits home for me because of our experience of blood clots. Hormonal contraceptives all raise the risk of blood clotting,2 but most of the time doctors consider this side effect both minimal and dismissible. For some people, however, who already have a (often undiagnosed) clotting disorder, taking a hormonal contraceptive is truly a life-threatening proposition. If school nurses, who know nothing about the child's medical history, are going to dispense these drugs, there is a very real risk that someone who should never be on hormonal contraceptive will be.

While parents should be able to protect their children from this with the opt-out forms, there are always situations where the mail gets lost. I have had that happen to me, sometimes with important mail like bills and DMV notices.

I understand that the state does have an interest in seeing that children are educated, and that pregnancy can cause drop-outs. I understand that the state even has some interest in ensuring that children are well cared for. I do not think that concern extends out this far though. The state has crossed the line, going from protecting against neglect to pushing a moral world-view.

Granted, that line was crossed well before the CATCH program. The state crossed that line when it started distributing condoms, and, from what I hear, in setting the contents of the sex ed programs. This step, distributing contraception, goes further though. The state is now medicating the child. Worse, this medication could itself be life threatening, and the state is placing minimal controls to protect against that. That aside, the medication can interact with other medications. If the child cannot trust her parents enough to tell them about a pregnancy, if she must get the contraception in secret, will she say anything when she goes to the doctor for something else? Will she even know that she should?