Not In My School
By Tanya L. Green
March/April 2001 Family Voice

“The doctor is in.” This phrase is taking on a different meaning in schools. Formerly, when a student became ill or injured, the school nurse would administer an aspirin or a Band-Aid. Now, a student needing medical treatment might go to her school’s “clinic,” where she might also learn about “reproductive health services.” An attending staff member might dispense condoms and oral contraceptives, or abortion referrals, without her parents’ knowledge or consent.

SBCs Won't Fix STDs

The number of school-based clinics (SBCs) rose dramatically over the last decade. According to a 1998-99 survey conducted by the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care (NASBHC), currently 1,135 clinics operate in schools, an increase from only 200 in 1990. Activists had held back SBCs in the 1980s. But the rise of HIV/AIDS played a major role in establishing clinics in the ’90s.

“The price was too high in many communities for parents and educators to ignore changing norms,” claimed Julia Lear, program director of Making the Grade, a grant program that funds SBCs, in The Guttmacher Report. “It became apparent there was a need to bring reproductive health services to high school students.”

But the truth is: SBCs don’t protect young people from AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

“The only impact [they have] had is indirectly promoting teens’ separation from parents and contributing to the problem … of increased STD rates,” said Dr. S. DuBose Ravenel, a North Carolina pediatrician and member of the Physician’s Resource Council, who has followed data on SBCs for 15 years.

Adding “reproductive health services” often comes later, according to The Guttmacher Report, a publication related to pro-abortion Planned Parenthood (PP). After the clinics are opened, operators work to build the trust, confidence and familiarity of the community. Then they present “data” on the need of reproductive health services, such as contraceptives.

“As these centers become more established, they gain community support and a buy-in from parents,” said John Schlitt, NASBHC’s executive director, in The Guttmacher Report.

Many clinics also provide pregnancy testing, STD testing and treatment, and HIV testing. Some even provide abortion counseling or referrals. Still others promote the myth of “safer sex” education. Institutions, such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, fund the clinics with no restrictions on “reproductive health” policies.

To hinder black population growth, Sanger opened birth control clinics in poor black neighborhoods. She convinced influential black leaders that birth control was the key to better health for their community. Some in the community saw the truth behind her veiled genocidal scheme, but it still had an impact.

Vestiges of Sanger’s plot remain today. As quoted in USA Today last January, the Centers for Disease Control reports the abortion rate in urban areas is higher “where access to abortion is easier.” Additionally, 36 percent of all abortions are performed on black women—up from 32 percent in 1990—although blacks constitute 13 percent of the total population.

It should come as no surprise then that PP strongly advocates for SBCs. Its research arm, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, is touted as an “authority” on their benefits and necessity.

The controversy surrounding SBCs in black neighborhoods is not new. In 1986 in Chicago, a group of ministers, parents and students, led by the late Rev. Hiram Crawford, filed a lawsuit against a clinic operating in the all-black DuSable High School. They accused the clinic of “a calculated, pernicious effort to destroy the very fabric of family life among black parents and their children.”

“If these clinics are so good for black kids, why don’t they put them in white areas?” asked Crawford in the November 24, 1986, issue of Time. He added that pressure and intimidation by clinic operators initially prevented black parents from challenging school administrators.

Sadly, the court dismissed the lawsuit, but not without far-reaching effects. “DuSable was the explosion,” said Ann Stull, secretary of Illinois’ Pro-Life, Pro-Family Coalition. “It slowed down [the rapid growth of] clinics and raised the SBC issue nationally. The process of fighting them became nationally known.”

The controversy flared up again in 1998 in Louisiana. Black pro-life state representative Sharon Weston Broome supported SBCs in her Baton Rouge district, if they provided only basic health care for needy students. “Clinics should only promote abstinence,” she said.

Broome was appalled when she learned officials planned to place clinics only in black schools, paving the way to add “reproductive health services” down the road. She spoke with Rev. Johnny Hunter, national director of Life Education and Resource Network (LEARN), the largest black pro-life ministry. At his urging, she suggested the clinics be placed in white schools as well. At that suggestion, “the idea was dropped immediately,” Hunter reported.

Eugenics and the promotion of teen sexual activity, birth control and abortion constitute reasons enough to reject SBCs—but there’s more: insidious undermining of parental authority. Probably because they know parents will not support “reproductive services,” SBC operators run roughshod over parental rights by invoking student “confidentiality.”

Clinics circumvent parental authority by referring students to an outside agency that provides abortion services or referrals. Some clinics distribute vague forms that simply ask for the parents’ “consent” to all services during their child’s enrollment period. In many cases, the clinic staff assumes parental consent unless parents say otherwise.

Dorothy Wallis is president and CEO of Caring to Love Ministries, a counseling center for pregnant women in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She became involved in the school clinic movement in 1986, when private foundations began funding the clinics. The push for contraceptive use concerned her.

“They were only 80-85 percent effective, not 100 percent. There was a false security against pregnancy and STDs. If pregnancy did occur, abortion was a backup,” she said. Dorothy also observed the slant toward eugenics: The clinics were being planned only for inner city schools.

In 1996, Gov. Mike Foster appointed her chairman of the School-Based Clinic Task Force, which investigated the clinics. When the Department of Health and Hospitals initially found “no violations” of parental rights, Dorothy waded through “tons and tons of paperwork” on her own. She uncovered vaginal exams, dispensing of contraceptives and “unspoken” abortion referrals—all without parental consent.

As a result, the task force successfully pulled funding from clinics that provided “reproductive health services” and failed to notify parents about services administered to their children. A child must now have prior parental consent before being treated in a school clinic in Louisiana.

But examples from poor, minority neighborhoods do not mean other parents can relax—as developments in an affluent Philadelphia suburb show. In 1999, Linda Pagan contacted Jennifer Siek, chapter coordinator for CWA of Pennsylvania, for help in defeating clinics planned in her school district. She had learned of the clinics through a friend who was the school’s health-care teacher.

Linda put together a phone chain of parents concerned about the birth control, abortion and confidentiality issues. She and Jennifer discussed how to conduct meetings that stressed parental rights.

“We met with [representatives of the hospital involved with the clinic.] …[They] did not like the questions we had, and to this day have not answered them,” Linda says. “Eventually, the offer to staff and run health clinics in our schools was dropped. The school district was taking on the responsibility of the parent. That is not in the best interest of the child.”

“Half the battle is getting through pastors,” Barbara says. “A lot of African-American pastors have a bit more liberal theology when it comes to abortion. I have attended health fairs at various black churches in my community and witnessed people dispensing condoms to teens.”

To combat this, Barbara educates pastors about the harmful effects of teen sexual activity and abortion on the community—and that SBCs aren't the answer.

Many family structures, particularly in urban areas, are weakened by the absence of a father. Therefore, ministries must meet their special needs. The undermining of parental rights by SBCs only further weakens an already fragile structure.

SBC promoters effectively strategize to put contraceptives, abortion referrals and other reproductive health services into the schools. For them, parental ignorance is bliss.

Parents must therefore stay informed of developments at their children’s schools. They must make their voices heard when administrators attempt to usurp their authority by making decisions for their children.

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