Can we please find some logical middle ground?

I had saved a few news articles lately that I wanted to comment on, but I felt so strongly about this that I couldn't postpone it.
I started another post similar to this one not too long ago...Do you remember middle school? What was on your mind when you were 11? How mature were you? Do you think you were still a child? I was!
I don't know where you get your news, but I didn't see this story tonight on either msn.com or yahoo.com. I searched out an article to post here myself. I heard it first yesterday on Glenn Beck, and then today on CNN a few times. It's about a middle school in Portland Maine whose school board, last night, voted to make birth control pills and patches available to its students through the school's health center. That's right, MIDDLE SCHOOL. Ya remember how old you were when you started middle school? 11 maybe 12? I had just started my period when I turned 12. I wasn't thinking about sex. It, and boys, were still pretty icky.
Let me outline this little policy for you...First of all, a student must have parental concent to even go to the health center, but not for each visit. There is 1 blanket concent form, which now lets your kid go to the nurse for everything from pepto for a belly ache to the pill (BTW, condoms have been available at this health center since 2002!) So the proponents' argument is, if you don't want your kids to get the pill, don't sign the form! Sounds easy, right? Until they fall in gym and can't receive medical treatment because you didn't sign the damned form!
Second of all, whatever treatment the student receives is not reported to the parents under privacy rules. So, your kid is the one responsible for telling you that she's decided to start the pill in 7th grade, but she didn't want to come to you and ask in the first place. How many kids do ya think will fill mom and dad in?
This is so outrageous on so many levels, I almost don't even know where to start. I think a good place to start is with the legal, emotionally and morally uninvolved perspective. Maine's own state law makes sex with an 11-year-old a felony sexual assault! So, let's see, the school board is now promoting the delinquency of a minor, and I may be wrong, but isn't that a crime?
People in favor of this new policy argue that it doesn't promote sex, it simply protects kids who are going to do it anyway. These are probably the same parents who buy beer for their high school kids' party because "they're going to drink anyway and I'd rather them be safe." How do they not understand that allowing this kind of behavior and enableing it is the same as promoting it. It's sad that it has gotten to the point where you have to talk to your kids about sex and drinking and drugs at such young ages, but your kids need to know that those behaviors at those ages are dangerous and inappropriate. You'd better believe if they were talking about parent providing alcohol or drugs or a getaway car, because their middle-schooler is "going to do it anyway" the public would be all over that parent ready to take the child away! Sex at that age is just as dangerous, if not more so. It can be so emotionally traumatic for these girls.
The thing about all of this that really scares me the most is where the line is drawn with regards to children and sex. If a public institution is allowing sex among minors how can we reconcile that notion with increasingly harsh reaction to pedophiles? How can there be any consistancy? If a 12-year-old is having sex with a 15-year-old it's ok, but if a 20-year-old does it with a 16-year-old it's rape? A child can concent to sex with another child, but not with an adult? It blurs the line between "child" and "adult" which is so incredibly dangerous for our kids. It really starts us down a very dangerous road. It's going to perpetuate the victimization of our young girls and women by saying it's their choice when they are too young to be capable of making that kind of mature choice. There is a kindergarten teacher in Norway who wants to allow her students (now this is 5- and 6-year-olds!) to be able to "explore their sexuality" including explore each others bodies and masterbate. Kids that age have no concept of their sexuality. Being curious about the parts on other little bodies that they don't have is one thing. It's an innocent curiosity. They are just as curious about adult bodies with hairy armpits. But to think they are recognizing sexuality is insane! And again, it takes us down that road that aleviates how we should treat pedophiles. If children are aware of their sexuality and it's all good, how can we say they cannot concent to sex, and therefore are victims of sexual assault and statutory rape?
Bottom line, even if you take the details out, no one should be able to provide medical care to a minor without the parent or guardian knowing and approving that care. The school board has no right to be parents to the students, and medical care is a parents' responsibility.
I wrote a blogpost recently called Hands Off! about another school who had banned touching altogether...no hugs, no high-fives, for fear that it could lead to other things like fights, or excessive pda or even sex. So let me get this straight, just so we're clear...one school is offering birth control to middle schoolers, while another won't let them touch at all. Nothing seems to gain any ground these days unless it's extreme to one side or the other. When did the middle-of-the-road majority get so lost? We are allowing our common sense to be hijacked by -ists. Anyone with an extreme agenda seem to be the only ones who get press. They seem to be the only ones who get anything accomplished. I say to you once again, it's time to get fired up and let 'um know how you feel!