Schools require a parent’s consent for a child to receive aspirin or attend a field trip, but not for a child to receive the so-called “morning-after pill” at over 150 schools across the country.  This availability and distribution is a direct affront to the rights of parents and a danger to the health of schoolchildren across the country.  Students receiving the morning-after pill are being put at high risk for serious and even life-threatening complications.

With this in mind, Representative Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado) introduced the “Schoolchildren’s Health Protection Act” (H.R. 6453) this session with the intent of restoring the rights of parents to have oversight in the matter of their children’s health.

Rep. Lamborn’s bill denies Medicaid, SCHIP and Title X federal funds to school-based health clinics if a school fails to comply with the proposed provision.

This common sense Act is very short but succinctly deals with this dire issue.  Schools should never be in the family planning business.  Besides the general risks associated with such a high dose of birth control (low doses are still associated with a higher risk of heart attack, stroke, etc.), a student’s medical history of taking the drug through a school clinic is likely to be unknown or confidential.  This puts physicians treating potential complications in a serious and dangerous bind.

Discussing his bill in a recent interview with Concerned Women for America (CWA), Rep. Lamborn stated, “There’s a role for mothers and fathers.  They have responsibility for their children and just to cut them out because of political correctness, saying that anything having to do with abortion is totally protected above everything else, no other considerations matter, is just not right.  They may be aware of medical history for their daughter that the nurse may not even be aware of, may not know is significant.”

Currently, nine states allow distribution of the morning-after pill to girls under the age of eighteen.  Alaska, California, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington State all legally dispense this dangerously high dose of birth control to minors.

Call your representatives today at 202-224-3121 and urge them to co-sponsor the Schoolchildren’s Health Protection Act (H.R. 6453).  This is not a partisan issue.  It is an issue of the health and well-being of minors and the rights of parents to protect them.

You can hear and see a recent multimedia interview with Rep. Lamborn and CWA President Wendy Wright here.