Nurses at thirteen public high schools in New York City have stocked up on the emergency contraceptive Plan B for their underaged students.
In an experimental program, the schools will be offering the last minute birth control pill to students as young as 14, without parental notification, CBSNewYork reported Monday.
The initiative comes as a part of the new program Connecting Adolescents To Comprehensive Health (CATCH) aimed at combating teen pregnancy.
“High school students are very sexually active and getting pregnant so we don’t have that luxury to think that they are too young to be engaged in conversations about contraception and sexual education,” Quinn told WCBS 880, adding that it is appropriate to not offer parental notification because of the “complexity of it.”
Parents have the ability to out of the CATCH program. So far, just 1-2 percent of parents have done so, CBSNewYork reports.
During an unpublicized pilot program last year, the New York Post reports, 567 students received Plan B and 580 students received Reclipsen birth-control pills in five city schools, according to the Department of Health.
In New York City, 7,000 girls get pregnant before age 17 and more than 60 percent of them get abortions.
The New York City health department already requires public schools to provide free condoms to students.