On June 8, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene launched a program called the “Healthy Teens Initiative.” This program provides young people with easier access to condoms, birth control pills, and morning-after pills. Adolescents are also offered confidential counseling sessions.
When asked by the media for his take on this plan, Bill Donohue had this to say: “It’s hard to say what’s worse—the stupidity or the moral irresponsibility of these clueless health professionals.
He elaborated: “The ‘Healthy Teens Initiative’ is both morally challenged and practically ineffective.
“Giving young people brochures about chlamydia and handing out condoms will do little if anything to alleviate the problems of teen pregnancy and STDs. Condoms are more readily available now than ever before, yet kids are still getting pregnant, and they are still getting sick.
“If those in charge at the Department of Health were serious about protecting New York’s youths, they would treat casual sex the way they treat cigarette smoking. But instead of hammering home the health risks and urging abstinence, our good public servants are handing out contraceptives with warm smiles.
“The education the ‘Healthy Teens Initiative’ will provide the city’s children will not help them to make moral choices. Rather, it will encourage libertinism. When fifteen year-olds are turning to city health counselors instead of their parents for advice about sex, we have a serious problem. Parents should be outraged that their minor children will be provided birth control pills and even morning-after pills (which are in some cases abortifacients) without their knowledge or permission.”
