About 40 separate school-based health centers doled out 12,721 doses of the Plan B “morning-after pill” to sexually active students at New York City public schools in the 2011-2012 academic school year, reported The New York Post.
That number is up from 10,720 in 2010-11 and 5,039 in 2009-10—which shows more than a 150 percent increase in two years since schools first began administering the drug.
The dramatic increase in handouts of Plan B— which can stop a pregnancy from occurring if taken up to 72 hours after sex— is raising questions about whether the method slowly is becoming the standard and accepted form of contraception at public schools, rather than the exception to the rule.
“I’m in shock,” Mona Davis, president of the NYC Parents Union, told The Post, explaining that her 14-year-old daughter attends a public high school in Manhattan.
“What gives the mayor the right to decide, without adequate notice, to give our children drugs that will impact their bodies and their psyches? He has purposely kept the public and parents in the dark with his agenda.”
But under New York State law, minors do not need parental consent to receive contraceptives, and Plan B is just one of many options provided by the NYC Department of Health for its Reproductive Health Project.
Besides “emergency contraception,” about 40 school-based clinics have dispensed prescriptions for birth-control pills, intrauterine devices (IUDs), hormone-delivering injections and Patch and NuvaRing — covering a total 93,569 monthly cycles through June 2012, the report says.
