amanda%20rowe.jpgLast week the King Middle School board in Portland, ME, made national news for voting to offer hormonal contraceptive pills or patches to girls ages 11-13 without parental knowledge or consent.
This was because, according to a quote from NPR:

Five of the 134 students who visited King’s health center during the 2006-07 school year admit to having had sex, according to Amanda Rowe, lead nurse in the city’s school health centers.

Those five students were potential sex abuse victims. ME law, according to a Department of Health and Human Services document….

It is illegal to engage in a sexual act with someone less than 14 years of age regardless of the age of the defendant.

According to that document, “sexual act” is defined as:

… any act between 2 persons involving direct physical contact between the genitals of one and the genitals of the other…

Also according to that document, ME teachers, administrators, guidance counselors and the school nurse are all mandated reporters of suspected sexual abuse.
So all children who reported having sex to Rowe in the past, or any child asking her for contraceptives now, is a suspected victim. Did she report those 5 children to DHHS, as mandated by ME law? Will she report those coming to her in the future?
I’m not the only one to wonder. According to WCSH6.com, October 19:

The Christian Civic League of Maine announced Friday it will ask the attorney general’s office to look for criminal activity at King Middle School in Portland.

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Other relevant questions:

  • Will the school nurse dispense contraceptives to these children without a doctor examination?
  • Currently, Johnson & Johnson faces over 2,500 lawsuits for strokes and blood clots. One involves survivors of a 19-year-old who died after use of the patch. Will the King Middle School system also be liable in the event it prescribes a patch and girl suffers harm or death?
  • Will the new policy include the morning-after pill, which is a 10-15x megadose of the birth control pill?
  • What if a girl requesting contraceptives has not even started menstruating yet? Will the school be liable in years to come for any long-term consequences of ingesting these female steroids pre- or peripubescence?
    [Rowe photo credit: NPR]

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