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District Defends School Clinic Offering Norplant Contraceptive : Birth control: Stressing that the issue was settled months ago, officials say the implant device will continue to be offered at San Fernando High.

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TIMES STAFF WRITERS

Los Angeles school officials, stung by protests against giving the Norplant contraceptive to San Fernando High School girls, defended the practice in a news conference Thursday, saying the issue was settled last summer.

The operator of a controversial clinic at the high school labeled the protests as sensationalism that panders to groups in a Roman Catholic area, where a determined battle was waged six years ago against distribution of birth control devices at the school.

Norplant devices are implanted beneath the skin and release birth control chemicals into the bloodstream for up to five years. San Fernando High School has one of only a handful of school-based clinics in the nation that use the implants.

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District officials said the clinic will continue to offer the implants, authorized in a public meeting last summer after a review by a committee of parents, teachers, administrators and health officials.

The clinic opened in 1987 and has been offering conventional forms of birth control, such as condoms, birth control pills and, in the case of girls with two or more children, IUDs.

Although Norplant uses a standard hormone treatment to inhibit ovulation, the semi-permanent implantation in the upper arm makes the device unique, requiring no further effort on the woman’s part. The clinic began offering the implant to students in September.

So far, eight students between ages 16 and 19 have received the devices. Under state law, the girls’ parents are not notified.

Robert L. Smith, executive director of the Northeast Valley Health Corp., which operates the clinic, said community protests against the practice “are just sensationalism, basically in a Catholic area. We went through this four or five years ago, and this kind of sensationalism is just unconscionable.”

When plans to open a clinic on campus were announced in the mid-1980s, opposition flared in the heavily Catholic community. Opponents hired a plane to tow a banner that read “No Clinic Here” and collected 7,000 signatures on petitions. The clinic was criticized at Masses at the five Roman Catholic churches in the school’s attendance area and about 2,000 people turned out for a protest march.

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When a Baltimore high school began offering Norplant implants in January, a national controversy over reproductive rights was stirred. When word got out this week that the devices were being offered at San Fernando High, critics came forward to express outrage.

“There’s absolutely no way that unmarried children under 18 should be using this kind of birth control,” said Yvonne Lovato, a community activist who protested against the clinic when it first opened six years ago.

“Kids should be concentrating on school, not sexual activities,” Lovato said. “When children do this, it’s a violation of their own body and it’s out of the sanctity of marriage.”

Others said the devices should not be offered without first obtaining parental permission.

But Jan Marquard, director of the San Fernando High clinic, said that would be illegal. “By law, minors are protected in California. They wouldn’t go for desperately needed services if parental consent was required,” she said.

Parents can refuse in writing to allow the clinic to give reproductive care to their children. But once they allow their children to have reproductive services, parents are not told what type of services the student receives.

“Norplant is an excellent choice for certain women and should be offered in our clinic,” said Susan Mitchell, the nurse practitioner who implants the device at San Fernando High School. “Other than abstinence, it is certainly the most effective method. One does not have to remember to take a pill or use a device, and there are no serious risks.”

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One of those who received a Norplant device at the school is Gracie Ramirez, 18, a senior from San Fernando.

“I didn’t want to have children so young,” she said Thursday. “A lot of my friends have kids, and I see what it has done to them. I didn’t want to end up like that.”

Ramirez said she wants to be a veterinarian and does not want a pregnancy to destroy her chances of finishing school. She said her boyfriend does not like to use condoms and “the pill is a real hassle. I’m not a lazy person, but I figured Norplant would be easier than the pill.”

Ramirez said that without the clinic, “I wouldn’t have taken responsibility for birth control. . . . I was afraid to go anywhere else. Even with people here telling me to go, it took a while.”

But other students were not so sure that offering Norplant on campus is a good idea. “Norplant sounds kind of scary,” said one junior. “They should be giving something like that in a hospital, not here.”

School board President Leticia Quezada said in an interview that she believes the clinic is operating as it should. Asked whether she supports the clinic offering the Norplant devices, she said: “That’s not my decision.”

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She said the clinic is operated on a contract basis by Northeast Valley. “They are best able to say these are the services that should be provided. The moment we start making decisions about health care, we are out of the business of education.”

The clinic is one of three in the district. The $1.3-million budget is funded mostly by foundations, corporations and other private donors with an interest in health care. Only about 15% of the 3,700 visits annually to the clinic at San Fernando High involve reproductive issues, said director Marquard.

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