New York City Schools to Hand out Morning After Pills

Tim Bean

9/24/2012

New York City; the city that never sleeps; ask anyone who is from there and they will tell you that the sun rises and sets on the Big Apple.  It isn’t too surprising that New Yorkers would think this way, because that fair hamlet has pretty much always been an important town in America; even back when it was called New Amsterdam.

Let’s look at what New York City is home of:

• It is the home of America’s financial industry, and widely regarded as the financial capital of the world, with the New York Stock Exchange on Wall St.
• It is home to America’s theater with Broadway.
• It is home of the United Nations
• It is home to the New York Yankees and their 27 World Series Titles
• It is home to Mayor Michael Bloomberg

I think we should stop there for a minute, because we can explore some things about New York’s beloved mayor.  He is the man responsible for the ban of smoking in all buildings in that city.  He single handedly banned all restaurants from serving foods with Trans fats.  He decreed that his citizens shall not be able to buy soft drinks larger than 16 ounces.  He wishes to put a blockade on baby formula being sold with in his kingdom, and is said to soon target alcohol consumption too.

Yep, you gotta love a city that allows it citizens so much freedom.

Well, it now appears the city that won’t allow adults the use of legal products has decided that it will grant adolescents, particularly young women, access to some free health care.  What kind of free health care?  Well, high school nurses can now dole out the so called “morning after pill” to women as young as 14.  This is an effort to curb teenage pregnancy and these pills can be handed out with parental notification – however, parents can choose to have their daughters to opt out of the program.  So far about 2% of parents have opted out of this, which I admit seems to be surprisingly low, but there it is.

What I find interesting is that a city which seems to think that adults don’t know what’s good for them; thus all of the banning of soft drinks, cigarettes, baby formula, etc. etc., also seems to think that 14 years old girls know what they are getting into by offering these pills to them.  It just seems a strange juxtaposition of thought processes there.

The other thing is that since these are public schools you know who is paying for this?  Yep, you guessed it the NYC taxpayer.

It is noble to try and reduce teenage pregnancies, I really do.  However, I do have to ask one question, where are the parents?  Shouldn’t the parents be the frontline of educating their children about the consequences of unprotected sex?  Sure, that isn’t going to solve the problem, but neither is simply doling out morning after pills either.  I suppose a case could be made that this program might cause other issues, but we will have to wait awhile to see, as this is a new program.

Maybe the citizens of New York City are now at the point where they expect their government and their officials to provide all the answers to all of their problems?  Maybe they simply cannot exist without the help and support of Uncle Bloomberg and his do-gooding team of bureaucrats and their minions?  Maybe New York City is the tip of the iceberg that is the end of the individual?

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.  (Fredrick Douglas)