KIRSTINA BOLTON | staff writer

A middle school in Maine give children the ability to make a decision they are not ready for.

Do you remember the term “sex sells”? We hear it in hip-hop music and see it on the reality TV shows that dominate our free time. Now, there are schools that take the term to a whole new level. Recently, a middle school in Maine approved giving out birth control without parental knowledge. The schools may not be selling sex, but they are selling the idea that sex doesn’t come with consequences, and that parents don’t hold the right to tell their children if it does.

I was six when I pierced my ears. My mom and sister were both there to hold my hands as they raised the piercing gun to my lobes. When I was 11, I wanted to get a second piercing. I arrived at the piercing parlor, but was told I had to have a parent or a legal guardian sign a paper because you have to be over thirteen to get your ears pierced without parental consent. But now, middle school students can get birth control from their school’s health center without consent from their parents.

It wasn’t long ago that birth control became popular to younger women. It has a variety of uses and is able to control certain hormone malfunctions and uncomfortable pains all around the you-know-where. But the recent approval of offering birth control to adolescents is delicately complicated and has raised far more concerns than praises.

The Portland School Committee in Maine approved the distribution of birth control to students in grades six to eight on Oct. 17, but chose to offer a compromise to their initial decision on Oct. 24, allowing parents to have more input the board gave parents “the option of blocking access to prescription contraceptives if they enroll their child in [a] clinic” and would limit contraceptives to students above the age of 14, according to The Boston Globe.

The schools are pairing birth control with different services for girls including physical checkups and counseling. These services are done by the school’s health center and are completely confidential.

The New York Times published an article about the issue and pointed out a horrifying statistic: one in 5 people at the age of 14 have been sexually active. We all knew about the horrors of STDs when we were that age, but apparently that doesn’t stop some of us. Public schools encourage safe sex, whether it is in elementary school, middle school, or high school. And although there are always going to be those that won’t listen to all the facts, or to their parents, this new choice for middle school students creates a difficult standpoint for parents and friends.

The approval in Maine has sparked a large controversy between parents and the Portland School Comittee. It involves more than just a tactic to prevent teen pregnancies. Many see it as a growing gap between generations. Some parents are even confused about their roles regarding this issue.

When you get into the habit of doing something, anything, it is hard to break and sometimes even harder to come out into the open about it. A friend of mine has gone through many relationships and became sexually active at a young age. She started taking birth control without telling her mother.

There is a time in everybody’s life when they just don’t like their parents. For some, it goes on longer than it should, and they can push away the opportunity of forgiveness and grasp on to their surroundings: music, movies, and friends. And what we scoff at one day might be the very thing that drags us down in the end. Our parents should be our role models, our heroes, but they can also be our most feared adversaries because of the authority they possess.

With the school’s health care offering counseling as an additional benefit with birth control, many girls feel compelled to confide in the school counselor instead of their best friends and parents. The nurse now becomes the parental figure, yet the girl is still left without future discernment that she might gain from her friends and parents.

And if the girl doesn’t want to go through with the counseling, then she risks the regrets of having no protection and ending up pregnant, or worse, having an abortion.

Sex is a precious thing. It is something that God designed especially for us to enjoy within marriage. It is the one thing that we have left to twist and fit around our human nature. Whether birth control is used for other needs rather than a safe sex practice, it is still something that carries much baggage and regret.

It doesn’t matter who you are, how smart you are, how athletic you are, or how spiritual you are, mistakes happen, and we all live with them.

We shouldn’t be sold into the idea that mistakes come without consequences and that medication can hide the rest.