via Our Bodies Our Blog. Looks like abstinence-only sex education is not the only foolish move by public schools when it comes to preventing teen pregnancy. Earlier this year, the Washington Post ran a story on a Fairfax, VA honors student who was suspended for taking her birth control pill while at school. As Deb Hauser of Advocates for Youth argues “To put birth control in the same category as illegal drugs or handguns stigmatizes responsible behavior.” Amen. The young woman in this case is fortunate to have a mother who supports her use of birth control. What about others who are afraid to tell their parents? States say they don’t need parental permission but what happens if your Mom or Dad finds your package of pills?
Leave it to Stephen Colbert to expose the absurdity of this war on birth control. Another reason to love the Colbert Report.
Hopefully the negative press from this case, combined with the SCOTUS decision regarding strip searches in schools earlier this summer, may lead schools to introduce some nuance into their “zero tolerance” polices regarding drugs.
Knitting Clio 
In schools with such a zero tolerance policy of drugs, do they allow rescue inhalers for asthmatics or insulin/etc for diabetics, or do students having a medical emergency have to skip to the office? What about students with severe allergies that require epi pens? As I have adult-onset asthma, I don’t remember because it didn’t concern me back in public school. Now that I have it, though, some school’s going to take away my inhaler over my dead body (no comments on how literal that could be without my inhaler, please).
Actually, state and federal laws make exceptions for inhalers and epi pens:
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/532518/