November 8, 2007
by Elizabeth Reinholt, Producer  

PORTLAND (NEWS CENTER) -- The King Middle School birth control proposal dominated the public comment session of Wednesday night's school committee meeting.
Though the plan was not even on the agenda for the meeting, parents and community leaders came out to voice their opinions, for and against the plan.

Opponents blasted the committee, saying contraception for 14-year-olds is morally wrong, and posed possible health dangers to girls so young.

Peter Doyle, a Portland resident says, "There are two ways to look at teens and pre-teens; as a problem or as a mystery. When we see them as a problem we bring on the big fix, technology, in this case, contraceptives to the rescue. It promotes excessive medicating of young people."

There were an equal number of residents there supporting the plan including the Executive Director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union, Shenna Bellows.

She says, "We all want teens to make healthy and responsible decisions regarding sex. We all want our young people to be safe, but the reality of the situation is that some teens are sexually active and need access to birth control."

The discussion comes as a lawyer with the American Center for Law and Justice is threatening to sue the school committee. The center is based in Washington, D.C. and is affiliated with Pat Robertson.

Attorney Steve Whiting says the plan violates parents' constitutional right to raise their children without governmental interference.

Whiting says, "If they don't amend it, we're definitely going to file suit. If they do amend it then we're going to have to look at the amendment to see if it's something that we still feel violates parent's constitutional rights and if it's something worth bringing action."

The school committee meets again on November 28th. There is no word whether the contraception plan will be brought up again. Meanwhile the topic itself continues to get national attention from very popular television programs, such as Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor."