Girls, as young as 11, can now get birth controls pills through their school health care center.
According to the Associated Press, education officials in Portland, Maine, have decided to allow a middle school health center to make a full range of contraception available, including birth control pills and patches. This decision came after an outbreak of pregnancies among middle school girls.
Each year, approximately 750,000 to 850,000 American teenagers become pregnant. The majority of these pregnancies approximately 74 to 95 percent are unintended, according to http://www.advocatesforyouth.org. The Web site stated between 1990 and 2000, the teen pregnancy rate declined 28 percent and the teen birth rate declined 21 percent. These declines in teen pregnancies and teen births are attributed to sexually active teen’s improved use of contraception.
In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Connecticut law that made the use of birth control by married couples illegal, according to The Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Web site. Also, the court’s landmark decision – coming five years after oral contraceptives became available in America and 49 years after Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. – provided the first constitutional protection for birth control.
Young girls receiving birth control is a step in the right direction in circumventing overpopulation. Overpopulation has been an ongoing world issue for a long time, especially in America – whose population reached 300 million in 2006.
This is a pressing issue but it becomes worse when 11-year-olds begin reproducing.
Siraaj Sabree for the Editorial Board.