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Who is Michael Heath? No one you should know. Basically he's some religious freak that has taken issue with the fact that King Middle School (also in Maine) can provide contraception for children who have parental permission to see a doctor. The dig is that because this school serves predominantly middle and lower-class kids, the health services is located in the school.

What the Idiot At Large fails to grasp is the "parental" part of all this. Kids cannot just get pills at random, they need permission from their parents first, to even see a doctor. As to why the school is offering contraception, the answer is because they had 17 pregnancies in the school (kids aged 11 to 13) in the previous year.

I fail to grasp why Christian conservatives get so angry when other adults decide what is right for their kids. It never is, or was about what the kids have access to - it's about what other parents can decide. And apparently the concept of being free to choose what can help your kid isn't an "American" ideal to this type of zealot. In their world only their values, including intolerance and bigotry is what is "right" for America.

54% of the school's children qualify for free lunch, meaning that 54% of the school is considered poor. Since clearly these kids are sexually active, and again quite clearly they don't have access to contraception why isn't it a reasonable alternative to offer counseling and medication at the school with parental consent?

These are kids, and if they're having sex they need help to prevent a pregnancy which would be physically and mentally harmful. In addition, according to their current policy a whole 5 kids out of 510 would have qualified for the program anyway.

So what's the big deal?