Babies having babies

I have a little brother. He is 14 years old, a freshman in high school and actively involved in sports and social activities. He’s a popular kid with an extensive, mixed-gender group of peers, and I really don’t ever want to think of him having sex. Ew, he’s still just a little boy. \nFrankly, no one in an authority position wants to think about the sexual lives of young teens and pre-teens, because they are children and we want to believe they are still behaving as children. It is terrifying to accept that we as a society have failed to keep an ideal of childhood intact for our youngest members, that they are playing Russian roulette with sex instead of playing tag. \nThe idea that high schoolers are having sex and severely endangering their opportunities in life by getting pregnant before graduation is disturbing enough, but now there is a body of evidence that children as young as junior high (that’s 11 years old, people) are engaging in regular sex and having babies. In response to an alarming jump in pregnancies among their junior high-aged girls, a school district in Maine has instituted a policy that girls as young as 11 can access chemical birth control through the school, without parental consent. The junior high where the dispensing clinic exists serves the most economically depressed children in the district. \nWhile the policy passed the Portland School Committee vote by an overwhelming majority, there are some dissenting voices. There are disagreements stemming from ideals as diverse as religious objections and arguments for parental consent. Sadly, some are dissenting because the subject of children having sex is just too icky to think about. \nMy response is, yeah, it’s uncomfortable, but grow up. Your pregnant kids apparently have.\nI think it’s safe to assume that someone somewhere has failed these pre-teens, most likely someone who just didn’t want to consider their precious little baby having sex. As uncomfortable as the subject is, if you are an adult in the life of adolescents, you are responsible for making sure they are fully educated about the risks of sex and the choices they have to protect themselves. If there was some way to make keeping children in the dark about the realities of sex a punishable crime, I would advocate that, but that is not a legitimate possibility. \nInstead, we as a culture must pressure parents to have those uncomfortable discussions with their children and be supportive educators. \nIf parents refuse to accept their role as educators, the state has a compelling interest to bypass the parents, as Maine has, to responsibly attack this epidemic. If these children want to be responsible and pursue birth control, it should not be the right of the parents to prevent that. This is not a medical procedure, like abortion, where an argument of parental consent might be more compelling. Instead, this is swallowing a little pill that can help ensure a full future for these young women and a brighter outlook for America.