When officials at King Middle School in Portland, Maine, announced this week that they would provide free birth control pills and condoms to children as young as eleven years old, many Americans reacted with criticism.

"I think it makes people nervous to think middle school students are having sex," Michael McCarthy, principal of King Middle School, said in defense of the decision. "Frankly, it makes me nervous. But there's a small population out there that needs protection."

According to data from the School of Public Health at Columbia University, only 4 to 5% of children under 12 have had sex. By age 14, that figure is 18 to 29 percent, with more boys being sexually active than girls. However, a 2005 report from the Pacific Institute for Research and Education found that only 8% of children ages 12 to 16 years old reported having sex.

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Labels: birth_control, schools, sex