Just let the inmates run the asylum

Background: Recently, a school district in Maine approved the distribution of contraceptives (including the pill) to middle schoolers without parental permission. A State News columnist (and all-knowing college student) thinks the parents who are angry about this just don't understand their kids.

Kelly Kane assumes “the parents that are angry over these school districts’ decision to approve birth control are those that are not close with their children.” Allow me to assume that Ms. Kane has never been a parent, or at least not the parent of an 11 year old child.

Did it ever occur to her that perhaps some parents are angry that important medical decisions involving their children will be made without their knowledge or consent? Or that they are angry with government officials who interfere with their right to raise their children as they see fit?

Perhaps if Ms. Kane is ever blessed with children, she’ll understand the anger when a political busybody tries to tell her the “correct” way to raise her children.

Furthermore, I trust she’ll understand the absurdity of her statement “If they had a good relationship with their middle schoolers then they would not be so nervous about what decisions their middle schoolers will be making on their own.”

Most eleven year olds are not emotionally or intellectually equipped to handle making many of their own important decisions regardless of their parental relationships. Ms. Kane ignores this fact at her future children’s risk.

[Letter to the Editor - The State News. Published 11/16/2007.]