By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org

NEW YORK – New York City is handing out morning-after pills like candy to girls as young as 14 in dozens of high schools, according to recent media reports.

The massive giveaway is either a desperate attempt to address the city’s epidemic of sexually predatory teachers, or “a terrible case once again of bigotry of low expectations” for teenage students, as suggested by Valerie Huber, president of the National Abstinence Education Association.

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We’re guessing it’s the latter.

Young girls in more than 50 of the city’s public high schools are receiving morning-after pills, sometimes before they’re sexually active, as part of a program city officials claim is targeted at combating teenage pregnancy, the Associated Press reports.

There is no denying that New York City has a problem with teenage pregnancy; more than 7,000 girls in the city get pregnant each year and two-thirds of them have abortions, according to the AP.

But we have to wonder what kind of a message the free pills are sending to students. City officials are presuming students will engage in teen sex, and are essentially endorsing it by giving away pills, Huber points out.

“New York’s program was phased in at health clinics at about 40 schools in the 1-million-student school system starting about four years ago. Since January 2011, it has expanded to 13 additional schools that don’t have clinics,” the AP reports.

Parents were allegedly sent letters allowing them to take their children out of the program, but if parents don’t sign and return the opt-out form school officials dispense the morning-after pills and other birth control without permission, the New York Post reports.

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Some parents claim they never received the opt-out letters, according to the Post.

“In the 2011-12 school year, 576 girls got the pills at the 13 added schools,” the AP reports.

New York City Parents Union president Mona Davids told the news service she believes parents should have to sign their daughters up for the program, instead of having them automatically enrolled, especially considering the powerful effects of the drug.

“They can’t even give our kids Aspirin or Motrin without informed consent. This is a chemical hormonal drug cocktail,” she said.

The morning after pills, known as Plan B pills, require a prescription for women under 17. City health department doctors issue the prescriptions for underage public school girls, according to media reports.

Conservative Chicago blogger Anne Leary believes the program undermines parental authority, and we agree.

“These kids are under 16, which is the age for statutory rape in most states. I just think it’s subsidizing and encouraging behavior that’s probably not healthy for kids that age,” Leary told the AP.

Aside from the obvious issues the program poses for parents, many would argue the city program raises a much bigger moral issue.

“ … Plan B’s label says it may also prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus, and conservative activists who believe life begins at conception contend it amounts to an abortion pill,” the AP reports.