Community Corner
Let's Talk About Sex
New London High School students have an alarmingly high rate of teen pregnancies and STDs so the school took a controversial step to deal with it.
I was watching the news the other night when a story caught my interest. runs a health clinic and on March 1, they will be able to offer condoms and prescription birth control to students. The story was accompanied by interviews with parents of students and the majority was in favor of the new service.
I am the mother of two teenage girls and over the years the has evolved into the necessity to use birth control and safe sex. I believe preaching abstinence is unrealistic, I have taught them that sex is part of a loving relationship and not something you should ever be coerced into. While I do not expect them to wait until marriage, I do expect them to wait until they are mature and in love. We have raised them to respect their body and expect others to do the same.
So how would I feel if they offered a similar service at ? I actually think all high schools should do it. Yes you can go to the or and buy condoms, but how many teens have access to a car to do so?
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They can go to Planned Parenthood to get free condoms and counseling, but have you ever passed a Planned Parenthood clinic? Most of the time they have pro-life protesters outside, I think this would scare off many teens from trying to enter.
School-based clinics have been offering birth control services in Windham and Hartford schools for eight years. Nurses in these clinics can educate students on safe sex and discuss whether the student is ready for that kind of relationship. As with the New London clinic, parents are given the opportunity to refuse their child services at the clinic.
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According to the Center for Disease Control, teen pregnancy rates have been declining for the last few years, however, they are still up to nine times higher than in other developed nations. They also show that 46 percent of high school students have had sex; only 38 percent of them used a condom. Of the 19 million new STD infections last year, almost half of the diagnoses were in people aged 15 to 24 years old.
I find those statistics shocking. Have people forgotten to warn their kids about HIV and other STDs? They are treatable, but some are not curable so why not make sure our children are educated and protected?
