The state steps between parents and their children...AGAIN!

The school board in Portland, Maine has decided to begin offering birth control at the district's middle school health center. The most horrifying component is that they would be doing this without parental consent or even notification.

They talk a lot around a "privacy component" in the article but don't describe it. What this means is that they have offering medical care to children without even notifying parents after the fact. How is that legal? How is that not a ridiculous abridgement of their rights? The idea that the government would step between parents and 11 year old children and decide non-emergency medical decisions on behalf of those children without even informing the parents is shocking beyond belief. The usurpation of rights here is just mind-blowing.

What absolutely kills me is that people are all bent out of shape that the U.S. doesn't plug its ears when listening in on a terrorist in Yemen who calls someone in the U.S. but they're completely fine with the government taking away the rights of parents to decide what routine medical care their children receive.

I'd like to say that this is just another example of the fascism of the Left, but it's hard to be that blase about it. It is yet another area where the Liberals in the country have decided to step forward and absolutely eviscerate the essential liberties in this country.

Bitter Pill: School Board OKs Birth Control for Middle School
Community Finds Itself at Center of National Debate
ABC News

In the end, it wasn't even close. The Portland School Committee voted 7 to 2 last night to allow the health center at the King Middle School in Portland, Maine, to offer birth control prescriptions to its students, who range in age from 10 to 15. Dr. Pat Patterson, the medical director of School-Based Health Services in Portland said she was "thrilled" with the vote. "The past few days have been very distressing and very difficult for the school. People have been really charged up against us. But I'm happy with the vote."

"Charged up" may be an understatement. The storm started brewing in Portland and across the country shortly after the proposal was announced. And last night, tensions boiled over at the school committee hearing held at a local Portland High School.

Proponents of the proposal tacked up black-and-white posters, contrasting the cost of raising a child with the cost of birth control, while several opponents bowed their heads in prayer. National and local media jostled for positions at the front of the room.

The possibility that young teens could be getting birth control at school incensed resident Diane Miller. "We are dealing with children...the ramifications are mind boggling to me. How could we even be considering this?" After she spoke at the hearing, Miller sat down and closed her eyes. "I was praying. My heart just aches over this," said Miller.

Mary Irbahim, another Portland resident, said that just because kids may be having sex doesn't mean they should be having sex. And offering birth control services is a form of encouragement. "Let's be leaders. Let's be parents. Let's be grownups," said Ibrahim.

After Peter Doyle, a former middle-school math teacher now living in Portland, argued that the privacy component "is really a violation of parent's rights."