Clinic Wants to Hand Out Birth Control at North Bay High School

CBS 5 ^ | May 11, 2005 | Unknown

[Scenic Sounds]

(CBS 5) Workers at a medical clinic want to start handing out condoms and birth control pills to students at one Santa Rosa high school.

Southwest Community Health Center sits adjacent to Elsie Allen High School. The area around the campus is mostly low-income and has a large Latino population. Latino teens have among the highest teen pregnancy rates, and this particular school has one of the highest rates in the state. To curb that, clinic staffers want to distribute condoms and birth control pills to students.

"It's very sad when these young girls get pregnant," said Dr. Enrique Gonzales, who works at the clinic. "Then they have to use abortion as a resource, which is both emotional and painful, or have a kid and really change their academic life and their entire family."

Gonzales says the clinic promotes abstinence first, but for teens already experimenting with sex, he wants to offer counseling and birth control. It is a practice already in effect at some schools in San Francisco, Oakland and San Mateo. In Berkeley teen pregnancy rates dropped 45% between 1994 and 2001 after a school clinic began offering birth control pills and condoms.

"High schoolers are at the age where they can make some of their own decisions," said John Hairston, a junior at Elsie Allen High. "If they are at that age, they should be able to buy their own birth control and condoms."

The school's principal says response to the proposal has been mostly positive. But the opposition is very vocal.

"I think that's a decision that parents should really have to make at home," said parent Rachel Hernandez.

Jami Viguerez said, "I think that if they are dispensing birth control at schools, then it's just going to tell kids it's OK to go out and have more sex, and more unprotected sex, because teens these days think, 'If I'm on birth control, then I don't need a condom.'"

The school board will hear pros and cons of the proposal Wednesday night.

[Scenic Sounds]

The school board will hear pros and cons of the proposal Wednesday night.

It must be really rewarding to be on a school board in the middle of this kind of thing. ;-)

[madprof98]

It would be much more effective just to sterilize these kids. Then let them have all the sex they want, with whomever they want, whenever they want. Should they get some terminal STD, euthanize them. Isn't that the liberal way?

[derheimwill]

It's illegal to pass out vitamins. Why should this be less regulated?

[Steely Tom]

Why they're at it, why not set up conjugal visit rooms in the high school itself? Without such facilities, the little dears might have to make their own arrangements, which can lead to embarassing encounters with parents or rivals. What good is a condom if you don't have a safe place to use it?

I'm sure they can come up with a cute name for this expanded program. HealthPlus, or some such.

(steely)

[bill1952]

Next it will be their constituional right to porn movies.

HealthPlus, or some such. - more like HillaryHealthPlus, or some such.

[MplsSteve]

I know I'm asking for a major reaming here...but I'm not opposed to this idea.

I'd rather spend $10.00 (for example) in tax money for birth control and condoms than I'd rather pay $500 (for example) in tax money to pay for some 15-yr old girl who gets pregnant, drops out of school and becomes another leach on society.

Not only that, but we may see a reduction in the number of abortions performed because some of these kids were smart enough to use proper protection. We may also see a decline in the number of STD's.

In my ideal world, we would never need these types of school-based programs because parents would take a pro-active approach in teaching their kids about sexuality.

But we all know that this is not gonna happen. In the meanwhile, I'd rather not get stuck paying for the mistakes of other people's kids.