They were discussing this on Star Jones the other night. I never thought about the girls remembering to take the pill or the family history. The only thing that crossed my mind was that this is crazy. That just makes me sad that kids at this age would even be thinking about having sex.

Like I said- but I have to repeat it!!- *I* could barely remember to take the pill. Heck, later in life I had my husband as a back up reminder and we still BOTH forgot sometimes. And we’re adults!

[...] this slacker mom contest, nor do the ladies over at iVillage. In fact, I’m still appalled by my last entry about the Pill being handed out to 11 year olds… Somewhere there’s a true slacker mom in that whole [...]

Middle school was only around 4-5 years ago for me, and I can tell you that yes, there are girls who have sex before high school. But at least in my area, it was rare and the few girls who did basically trashed their reputation for the rest of their school career.

I think it’s ridiculous that girls this young have to take the pill, but that there’s more harm than good. Memory’s not such a problem. I was downing four-pill cocktails every day when I was twelve. And the chances of serious side effects for the pill are very small, and compare that to the chances of getting pregnant after unprotected sex.

I worry about the health ramifications of all of this. Who will be responsible if one of these 11 year old girls gets a blood clot themselves? Will a lawsuit bring down the entire school district? With all the horrible diseases out there that the pill does not protect against… I just feel profoundly sad that parents are not involved in such an important decision in their CHILD’s lives. At least let the parents take responsibity for what happens with their own children. This is not Venezuela, children do not belong to the state! HELLO!!!

[...] again, when you have 13 year olds having sex, all I can think is where’s the parents at? Maybe there should be a little more hovering [...]

The pill is provided through a health clinic that parents have to sign their kids up for. The problem is once they sign their child up, they have no say in treatment for their child. This really affects the low income children in the school. Having had no insurance myself, I could not let my uninsured child use the free health services because of this. I personally would like to see the studies that say elevated hormone levels for still developing bodies is safe. I am going to guess no exist.

Having grown up in a low income area, I can tell you where these girls mothers are… they are out having sex with their flavor of the month boyfriend and their daughters are emulating the behavior. Not true in all cases of course but it is true for many of them.

This is absolutely crazy. What the kids need is better parenting in my opinion.

I’m not even going to scratch the surface of the moral issues here, but I will echo the health concerns.

In addition to things like blood clots, there is also the issue of drug interactions. What happens when the child is prescribed other medications by their pediatrician that would interact with the pill? Even something as simple as an anti-biotic can nullify the effects of the pill. Plus, and I’m no doctor here, I’m sure there are other medications that produce harmful interactions.

Then again, our school district has the legal right to facilitate abortions by transporting girls over state lines during school hours without parental knowledge.

I thought schools were meant to educate. Period.

Yet another reason I’m homeschooling my younglings.