Opinion Staff Editorial Teen pregnancy: in-school clinic can help by Stephani Veff Staff Writer “Every 30 seconds, another teenager in the United States becomes pregnant,” according to Carl Djerassi in an article from Society magazine. Some 30,000 of these girls are under the age of 15, which has made the phrase “children raising children” not only alarming but accurate. Just knowing a lot of scary statistics is not going to solve this very real and growing problem. Something needs to be done, and soon. Bringing sex education into the classroom has not been quite the success it was intended to be. Simply being educated about contraception has not helped many of these teens. What they really need is access to the con­ traceptives they are being taught about. In-school health clinics are the solution to this problem. In the schools that presently have health clinics on campus, the pregnancy rates have dropped dramatically. The first school­ based health clinic, which opened in St. Paul, Minnesota 13 years ago, has reduced the number of teen pregnancies by 66 percent. Locally, the Portland Public School System has opened a clinic at Roosevelt High School with Jefferson, Marshall, and Cleveland schools to follow. Roosevelt’s clinic has been operating a little over 11 months with about 35 students using the clinic each day and approximate­ ly one-third of the student body visiting the clinic at least once in that amount of time. The clinic offers many services including: routine physical exams, sports physicals, immunizations, treat­ ment of minor illnesses and in­ juries, reproductive health care, and health care education/ pro­ motion. Cleveland High’s clinic is set to open January 26, and was chosen as a health clinic site because it ranked fourth in the birth rate, with 56 of every 1000 teenage girls carrying pregnancies to full term. A little closer to home, here at the college there is a health clinic that is open to both students and faculty. The clinic offers a variety People need to recognize the seriousness of teen pregnancy and begin supporting those clinics already in existence. The problem will not go away by itself, instead it will continue to grow. If there is a school you feel needs to adopt the idea ol an in-school health clinic let the school know; your children (oi future children) will more than likely thank you for it. of services, including counseling for birth control, at no charge. If the staff is unable to help you with your problem they will be able to refer you to someone who can. Also at the clinic you will find a number of pamphlets on the subject of pregnancy and con­ traceptives which may prove to be helpful, regardless of whether you make an appointment with one of the health clinic staff. 4heu have. C on + rô L md rf- +heurte 14hwk. kitte sHoulct be 4auah+ aV .hoffiS- gjesides v’nakuec. bridh Connubi available. u>¡l¿ tn' ort^hwne. allRlahT. uttritlehd encoaraqeol 3ex befe«.e. ux. had ana place. S» -ttit ^veraci* coVVr w*