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Opinion: Massachusetts town opts for unlimited, free condoms for <em>all</em> children, starting in elementary school

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What the world needs now are condoms, sweet condoms...

No, not a new song by Dionne Warwick. But it could be the theme song for one Massachusetts school system.

Earlier this month, the school committee overseeing Provincetown’s schools passed a resolution that will provide all students from elementary to high school with free, unlimited condoms. All you gotta do is step up and request one.

Let’s say you’re the parent of a 6-year-old and you don’t like the idea.

Tough! says the district.

You don’t get a say. School officials don’t even have to tell you if your....

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...child requests a condom. Further, if you object, they can run roughshod over you. They can distribute at will.

Sounds like a condom-bonanza!

Not quite, sneered the committee chairman.

“It’s about availability; we’re not handing ‘em out like M&M’s,” Peter Grosso told the Boston Globe.

That’s true. You have to go talk to the school nurse and she can load the student up with a wallet-ful if necessary.

If the person requesting them is particularly young? Say, a kindergartner wanted a few dozen? These are professionals we’re talking about, so don’t worry.

The superintendent said that “if an especially young child requests a condom, the nurse will ask the student’s motive and act accordingly.”

Whew. That’s good. We don’t want some wingbat distributing condoms like a crazy person.

Further good news: tossing the condoms out like beads at a Mardi Gras parade is only a secondary option.

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A school administrator told the FOX News station in Boston that the school “encourages abstinence for all students as a first priority.”

By the way, are any parents against ‘Condom-palooza’? No one apparently showed up to comment at the committee meeting.

That doesn’t mean that everyone’s OK with the policy though. One committee-member thinks the new condom rule is way too tight.

“I don’t like that students can’t be discreet about this,” school committee member Shannon Patrick told the Provincetown Banner. “They have to go and ask for it. I’d rather them not have the conversation [with counselors] and have the condom than not have the condom.”

-- Jimmy Orr

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