The Department of Education of New York City has adopted a program to give free anti-birth pills to teenage girls. Some of these girls will be injected in advance.
Parents can opt out in advance. But unless they do, their daughters are fair game. So far, no more than 2% of parents have opted out. If you want to know why the public schools in New York City are academically terrible places, begin here. Parents don’t care what their kids are doing after school, let alone in school.
This is safe sex, except for those pesky sexually transmitted diseases. STDs are not affected by birth-control pills.
This program has an acronym: CATCH — Connecting Adolescents To Comprehensive Health. CATCH, as in “whatcha gonna catch?” This program is a government subsidy to all those little bugs that get passed from teenager to teenager.
This is the city where it is illegal to sell large cups of sugary drinks. This is a city than bans transfats in restaurants. But where gonorrhea concerned, it’s “come and get it!” And the kids will.
While Big Apple high schools have long supplied free condoms to sexually active teens, this is the first time city schools have dispensed hormonal birth control and Plan B, which can prevent pregnancy if taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sex.
The girls can get Depo-Provera, a birth-control drug injected once every three month.
These require prescriptions for kids under 18. What to do? Won’t doctors be busy written prescriptions?
There is a loophole. A trained nurse can administer the drugs.
The school system is saying, if not loud, then at least clear: “Physicians are superfluous. A salaried nurse is just as qualified.” (By the way, in most cases, this is true, which is why nurses will steadily replace physicians. This will be allowed to hold down Medicare and Obamacare costs.)
Today, 14 high schools covering 22,000 students have adopted CATCH.
At the High School of Fashion Industries in Chelsea, where 85 percent of the students are girls, ninth-graders were told about CATCH at summer orientation. Some welcomed it.
“I don’ t want to be a young kid who gets pregnant and can’t find a job,” one cautious freshman told The Post.
Can this be true? Ninth grade? Rest assured, it’s true.
About 28 percent of city students entering ninth grade have already had sex, and more than half are sexually active before completing high school, according to city data.
“Not my little girl,” parents believe. Oh, yeah?
Public education isn’t free.
Government schools should never be called "public" schools. They should always be called "government" schools, because that is what they are. Proper language is important.
Long time Goldwater conservative who finds birth control cheaper than a lifetime of taxpayer supported welfare and free medical. I wish all those religious zealots who hate reproductive choice and favor unlimited population growth would step up and pay for all the extra people they wish for. As usual they want the rest of us to pay for their religious preferences. Well, birth control is still far,far cheaper and I will gladly pay for it rather than huge welfare and free medical.
Too bad the government was not handing out morning after pills when Stanley Dunham was conducting a survey to find out how the endowment of African males compared with her father's.