Girls at 13 NYC Schools Get Morning After Pills, No Parental Permission

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Sep 24, 2012   |   12:30PM   |   New York, NY

The New York City Department of Education is furnishing morning-after pills and other birth control drugs to students at 13 city high schools and without parental permission.

School nurses supplied with the drugs, which can cause a very early abortion, are dispensing “Plan B” and other oral or injectable birth control to girls as young as 14 without telling their parents — unless the parents opt out of the program after receiving a school letter informing them of the new policy.

According to a Fox News report, New York City high schools have supplied free condoms to teens in the past, but this is the first time city schools have given the birth control drugs that come under Connecting Adolescents to Comprehensive Health, known as CATCH, which is part of a city-wide pregnancy prevention program.

The New York Post has more on the situation:

It might be a nationwide first as well. The National Association of School Nurses could cite no other school district supplying Plan B.

So far, during an unpublicized pilot program in five city schools last year, 567 students received Plan B tablets and 580 students received Reclipsen birth-control pills, the city Department of Health told The Post.

This fall, students can also get Depo-Provera, a birth-control drug injected once every three months, officials said.

Oral and injectable contraceptives require prescriptions, which, in the CATCH program, are written by Health Department doctors.

Plan B is typically sold as an over-the-counter medication, but those under age 18 need a prescription. For the CATCH program, students can tell a trained school nurse they had unprotected sex. The student will then get a test to see if she is already pregnant; if not, the prescription is issued and she can walk out with the pill.

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The city expanded CATCH to 14 schools with more than 22,000 students over the past year. Officials dropped one, Seward Park Campus in lower Manhattan, because CATCH was overwhelming the medical office.

Parents at the 14 schools were sent letters informing them about CATCH. Parents may bar their kids from getting pregnancy tests or contraceptives if they sign and return an opt-out statement. If they do not, schools can confidentially give the contraception without permission. An average 1 to 2 percent of parents at each school have returned the opt-out sheets, said DOH spokeswoman Alexandra Waldhorn.