Posted on 11/09/2007 3:52:26 AM PST by Man50D
CNSNews.com) - A conservative civil liberties group said it will proceed with a lawsuit against the Portland, Maine, School Committee for refusing the reconsider its policy on prescription contraceptives for middle school students as young as 11.
"This is an issue where the rights of parents must be protected," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which specializes in constitutional law.
"This is not only bad public policy but a violation of state law that simply cannot be ignored. There is tremendous outrage and disgust over the Committee's usurpation of parental responsibility to protect the health and morality of their children."
At a meeting on Wednesday, the chairman of the Portland School Committee said the threat of a lawsuit would not derail the school committee's decision to provide prescription contraceptives to students at King Middle School who ask for them.
At Wednesday's regular committee meeting, six people spoke against providing birth control at the middle school and nine spoke in favor of it, the Portland Press Herald reported.
Under the controversial policy, students must have parental permission to go to the school clinic, but once there, they may receive confidential care.
The ACLJ said it has heard from more than 40,000 Americans across the country, including hundreds of Maine residents, who consider the Portland school system's contraceptive policy "dangerous."
"Unless school officials make an 11th hour concession, we will move forward and file a lawsuit within a matter of weeks to remove this policy," the ACLJ said in a news release on Thursday.
The group plans to challenge the policy on the grounds that children may get prescription contraceptives without the knowledge or consent of their parents. The policy also violates Maine law by not reporting all illegal sexual activity involving children 13 years old or younger, the ACLJ said.
The ACLJ sent a letter to the Portland School Committee earlier this week calling the policy "deeply troubling" and warning that legal action would ensue unless school officials changed the policy. (See related story)
"The failure of health center personnel to report all instances of sexual activity involving young children endangers the safety of those children and must be corrected. Moreover, the Committee's decision to offer prescription birth control to children as young as 11 years old tramples upon parental rights and has the effect of promoting illegal sexual activity."
The ACLJ urged the Committee "to put an end to this illegal activity, or the ACLJ will assist parents in bringing legal action against the Committee."
Sekulow said ACLJ attorneys are now reviewing their legal options available and will make a decision soon on whether the suit will be brought in state or federal court.
"We will be representing parents who have children in the middle school and are confident that our legal challenge will succeed," he said.
Since the medicine has side effects including
thromboemboli, and early artherosclerosis, MIs and death,
one wonders:
Do the teachers obtain informed consent from the children?
Are the teachers liable for practicing medicine
(without a license) IF a side effect occurs?
Should the ACLU -and the attorneys- be liable if a side effect occurs?
All those pedophiles posing as teachers want our children to be safe, and with mass immunizations starting at 8 or 9 years old for HPV, clean as well.
There’s gotta be a lawsuit in the works here not only over the health issues that are certain to result.
They made Socrates drink Hemlock for less.
You have hit the nail on the head!! What will be the PRICE of the first lawsuit for a dead 12 year old. Anyone that thinks this is crazy should have seen the effect they had on my 26 year old wife. Will a 12 or 13 year old girl, bleeding like a gun shot victim, call her parents and ask for help in the middle of the night?
I could not take contraceptives, either. They made me NUTS.
Kids cant get motrin or Tylonal with codeine but they’ll get birth control pills
Although "they" keep denying it saying there is no conclusive proof (except for a steady increase in breast cancer rates since "the pill" was introduced), they were the cause of my wifes breast cancer when she was 28 years old. How many more susceptible young women do they want to add to those numbers?
WOW, is that so? I had not heard that, I think. For me, every day was like PMS. “Just take me to the padded room.” Life is hard enough without adding extra hormones, thank you.
I don't know about Maine, but in Georgia, the school clinics are staffed by nurses, not teachers.
Of course, in Georgia, nurses can't prescribe drugs, unless they are nurse practioners (the school nurses I know are not), and nurses in school clinics can't even give out Tylenol, much less oral contraceptives.
I *think* that there is a provision of NCLB that says schools can't distribute contraceptives, but I'm not inclined to go look up the part of the statute that supposedly says that right now. If anyone here is involved in this legal battle, that would be something they would want to look into, however.
Where do you see that teachers will be prescribing birth control here?
I’m not even seeing anything that says its actually the school. The article says “Portland School Committee” which I am presuming is something like the school board here in Oklahoma, where I live. Might be a teacher or two on it, like ours, but most members are not, and never have been, teachers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.