‘You Can Be 12 Years Old’ — Massachusetts Planned Parenthood Clinics Have No Age Requirement For Free Condoms

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2021/07/24/you-can-be-12-years-old-massachusetts-planned-parenthood-clinics-have-no-age-requirement-for-free-condoms/

How old should you have to be to get free condoms?

At the four Planned Parenthood locations across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, there is no age requirement. Three of those clinics are in the biggest cities in the state:  Boston, Worcester, and Springfield. The other is in Marlborough, a city of about  40,000 in western Middlesex County.

A Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts counselor told NewBostonPost over the telephone on Monday morning that a person can be 12 years old and go into a Planned Parenthood clinic in Massachusetts and get free condoms.

“Nope,” she said when asked if there was an age requirement. “You can be 12 years old. [Laughs.] I mean, I hope, I personally hope he’s not 12, you know? But if he is, be protected.”

Typically, 12-year-olds are in sixth or seventh grade, but those who have been held back a year can be in fifth grade, which is elementary school in most towns.

The counselor also explained how someone can obtain condoms at a Planned Parenthood location in the state.

“You just go to a Planned Parenthood, they’re in a bowl, you take ’em, and you walk out,” she said. “That’s it.”

The age of consent for sexual intercourse in Massachusetts is 16 years old.

The Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts notes that free condoms and lubricant are available at each of its health centers. It also notes that there is no requirement to obtain permission from a parent to get these things.

“In Massachusetts, minors (under the age of 18) do not require parental/guardian consent for contraception, emergency contraception, pregnancy testing and the diagnosis and treatment of STIs and HIV,” it says.

Patricia Stewart, executive director of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, told NewBostonPost that it’s a practice that needs to stop.

“Offering free condoms with no age limit to girls aged 12 years and younger — who are still children, themselves — feeds Planned Parenthood’s insatiable desire to stoke its bottom line with more candidates for its abortion mills and exposes its pretended concern for the life of young women as the lie that it is,” Stewart said by email.

Mary Ellen Siegler, director of communications and research for the Massachusetts Family Institute, also condemned the practice.

“Planned Parenthood believes parents are a barrier to the services they provide,” Siegler said by email. “They normalize sexual activity for minors through their graphic sex education programs and by giving away free condoms, knowing that condoms have a higher failure rate among teens. Their Get Real comprehensive sex education curriculum is used in at least 150 MA schools. If they can get more kids having sex without their parents knowing about it then they can create new customers who will go to them for STI treatments and abortions. Our children are nothing more than a commodity to Planned Parenthood.”

A spokesman for the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts could not be reached for comment on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday this week.

 

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