Yeah, prescription. Condoms are already available. To 11-year-olds.

Look at it this way: You’d better cover the basics early if you want your 13-year-old to be able to follow along during those tricky Planned Parenthood “golden showers” seminars.

Learning curves, people, learning curves.

The Portland School Committee is poised to take up a proposal that would enable students at King Middle School to obtain birth control prescriptions from the school’s health center.

Under the plan scheduled for consideration Wednesday night, King would become the first middle school in Maine to make a full range of contraception available to students in grades 6 through 8, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.

King’s health center, which opened in 2000, already provides condoms as part of its reproductive health program. Prescription birth control, such as pills or patches, would be prescribed after a physical examination by a physician or nurse practitioner, said Lisa Belanger, who oversees Portland’s student health centers.

The centers require that students have written parental permission before being treated. Under state law, students are allowed to seek confidential health care and decide whether to inform their parents about the services they receive, Belanger said.

Sexual precociousness being a core indicator of “progress,” I’m cautiously optimistic that we’re on our way towards European standards of enlightenment. Exit question: What does the last paragraph in the blockquote mean? Are they saying that the centers are running afoul of state law by requiring parental permission? Or have the fascist wingnuts in Maine decided that a kid who’s still fully seven years away from majority actually does need the permission of his or her guardian before filling a birth control prescription?

Thanks to Slublog for the tip.