Colorado School Offers Contraception To Students

DENVER - Bruce Randolph School will be the first in Denver Public Schools to offer birth control to students.

Condoms, birth control pills, and emergency contraceptives are now available to any student whose parents signed them up for services at the school based clinic run by Denver Health Medical Center.

Jennifer Gonzalez is part of the parent group that pushed for the contraceptives. She has a son in the high school.

"If the only thing keeping my son from protecting himself is the embarrassment of asking me, or the ability to get to the clinic where its offered for free, then I'd much rather him be able to walk into the school based clinic and ask for it," she said.

Thirteen girls at Bruce Randolph have had babies in the past two years.

The principal hopes access to birth control will bring that number down, and help break the cycle of poverty in the area.

But not everyone agrees. Some people say school is not the place for this, and others believe abstinence should be taught instead.

Bob Enyart with Colorado Right to life expects the number of pregnancies to increase.

"This is a tragedy of parenting and schooling," Enyart said.

There are 14 school based clinics that offer some form of contraception in Colorado, but Bruce Randolph is the first in DPS. The school serves students in 6th-12th grades.
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JMC Ministries Response

What Ever Happened to Teaching Children Self Control, Abstinence and the dangers of having sex outside of marriage? Now parents and schools just throw pills, condoms and the day after pill at kids when they want to have sex. Instead of educating them and parents taking responsibility for their children and actually raising them with morals, now we just basically say, "go do whatever you want as long you take a pill (which is not even 100% protecting their children from getting pregnant) and condoms (which is not even protecting them 100% from STDS, HIV/AIDS and pregnancy) This is like throwing a Band Aid On a Opened Wound that without the right kind of care and nurturing will never heal and we will continue to have children younger and younger becoming sexually active and getting pregnant.