Plan B has become Plan A in the Bloomberg administration’s stealth war on teen pregnancy.
Handouts of the “morning-after pill” to sexually active students have skyrocketed under an unpublicized project in which health centers in public schools offer girls a full menu of free birth-control drugs and devices, records obtained by The Post show.
Last September, the city revealed it had started giving out Plan B and other birth control in the nurses’ offices of 13 high schools. At the time, officials said 567 girls had gotten Plan B.
But the birth-control blitz was much bigger than the city had acknowledged. About 40 separate “school-based health centers” doled out 12,721 doses of Plan B in 2011-12, up from 10,720 in 2010-11 and 5,039 in 2009-10, according to the newly released data.
About 22,400 students sought reproductive care from January 2009 through last school year, records show. Under state law, minors don’t need parental OKs to get contraceptives.
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Plan B, which can block pregnancy if taken up to 72 hours after sex, is just one weapon in the city Department of Health’s arsenal for its Reproductive Health Project, an internal report reveals.
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.
The Post obtained the report under a Freedom of Information Law request.
Handouts of birth-control packets rose from 6,027 in 2009-10 to 10,462 last year. Depo-Provera injections rose from 1,213 to 2,117. Staffers also insert plastic IUDs in the uterus, where they can remain for years.
Officials refused to discuss the project.
I have no problem with the city making emergency contraception or reproductive care available to students.
I do have a problem with the secrecy.
Clearly they have some larger agenda here that they are not willing to be upfront or honest about.
Otherwise, why lie about how many schools are involved and how many students used the services?
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