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MIKE FRANCO REPORTS: . School health centers didn't report underage sex:
(King Middle School moves
to offer birth control. DA says
schools must report anyone under age 14 who's having sex.)
By Kelley Bouchard,
Staff Writer October 26, 2007
Portland's school-based health centers have not been reporting all
illegal
sexual activity involving minors as required by law, but they will from
now
on, city officials said Thursday.
Cumberland County District Attorney Stephanie Anderson questioned the
health
centers' reporting
practices after the Portland School Committee
decided
last week to offer prescription birth control at the King
Middle School
health center.
The King Student Health Center has offered comprehensive reproductive
health
care, including providing condoms and testing for sexually transmitted
diseases, since it opened in 2000.
The school serves students in grades
6 to
8, ages 11 to 15.
Maine law prohibits having sex with a person
under age 14, regardless
of the
age of the other person involved, Anderson said.
A health care
provider must report all known or suspected cases of sex
with
minors age 13 and under to the state Department of Health and Human
Services, she said. Abuse
also must be reported to the appropriate
district
attorney's office, Anderson said, when the suspected perpetrator
is
someone
other than the minor's parent or guardian.
"When it's somebody under
age 14, it is a crime and it must be
reported,"
Anderson said. "The health care provider has no discretion
in the
matter.
It's up to the district attorney to decide."
Anderson said she contacted
Portland officials after she learned that
some
employees of the health centers, which are operated by the city's
Public
Health Division, believed they could decide whether a child's sexual
activity constituted criminal
abuse.
In fact, if a child under age 14 was having consensual sex with someone
of a
similar age,
health center employees weren't reporting it to the proper
authorities, said City Attorney Gary Wood.
Anderson said doctors and other health care providers in private
practice
may falsely believe they have similar
leeway, but they must follow the
same
laws.
"It's clear that it's going on all the
time," Anderson said. "Either
the law
is going to be enforced or it needs to be changed. I don't think
a law
should be routinely violated."
Portland's six school-based health centers had no formal policy
on
reporting
sexual activity involving students under age 14, said Douglas Gardner,
director of Portland's
Department of Health and Human Services.
Gardner said it's unclear whether any health center employee failed to
report suspected cases
to the state Department of Health and Human
Services,
but they did fail to report cases to Anderson's office.
"Moving forward,
we will report to the letter of the law," Gardner
said.
He noted that the reporting issue applies
to few students. Five King
students reported being sexually active last year, and school officials
said
they
were all ages 14 and 15.
Although Portland officials intend to comply with the law, exactly what
the
law requires remains unclear, Wood said. Having sex with a 13-year-old
is
clearly illegal, he said, but the law
doesn't address the possibility
of the
other person involved being 13 years old, too.
"I think
(Anderson) has raised a legitimate point," Wood said. "I'm
just not
sure that consensual sexual activity
(between two 13-year-olds)
constitutes
abuse."
If Anderson's office received a report
of two 13-year-olds having sex,
she
said, each minor would be considered a victim and a perpetrator and the
case
likely wouldn't be prosecuted.
Wood said he plans to seek guidance from Maine Attorney General Steven
Rowe.
Rowe is married to Amanda Rowe, Portland's head school nurse and a
proponent
of the King contraception
proposal.
The School Committee voted 7-2 last week to expand contraceptive
offerings
at King,
with John Coyne, chairman, and Benjamin Meiklejohn in
opposition.
Both opponents are developing proposals
that would clarify the School
Department's role in offering reproductive health care at the middle
school,
including a possible age limit of 14 and up. The committee is expected
to
take up the issue Nov. 7.
"If there are legal issues with providing reproductive health care at
King,
I would want them to be brought
forward to the board and explained to
make
sure that it's provided in a safe and legal way," Coyne said.
Anderson said she will wait to see if the committee makes changes
before
deciding how to proceed.
Meiklejohn said Anderson's concern confirms his own. "I'm not opposed
to the
services
being provided, but we need to have public confidence in
whatever
we do," he said.
Andrew MacNeal,
a lawyer with the Maine Medical Association, called
Anderson's interpretation of Maine law on this issue "conservative."
"I might argue that the health care provider has more discretion in
reporting abuse," MacNeal
said. "Always, a physician's first obligation
is
to the patient."
MacNeal said
it's not practical to apply the law this way to all health
care
practitioners, especially when many of them
wouldn't consider
consensual sex
between two 12-year-olds to be a crime.
MacNeal and Gardner
questioned whether strict reporting requirements
might
have a chilling effect on young people seeking health care.
"If we're reporting to the district attorney's office, it brings it to
a
whole other
level," Gardner said. "I don't know what that would do to
the
comfort level of young people coming
to us for health care."
(Staff Writer Kelley Bouchard can be contacted at
kbouchard@pressherald.com.)
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