eople decisively favor letting their public schools provide birth control to students, but they also voice misgivings that divide them along generational, income and racial lines, a poll showed.<\/p>\n
Sixty-seven percent support giving contraceptives to students, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll. About as many \u201d\u201d 62% \u201d\u201d said they believe providing birth control reduces the number of teenage pregnancies.<\/p>\n
“Kids are kids,” said Danielle Kessenger, 39, a mother of three young children from Jacksonville, Fla., who supports providing contraceptives to those who request them. “I was a teenager once and parents don’t know everything, though we think we do.”<\/p>\n
Yet most who support schools distributing contraceptives prefer that they go to children whose parents have consented. People are also closely divided over whether sex education and birth control are more effective than stressing morality and abstinence, and whether giving contraceptives to teenagers encourages them to have sexual intercourse.<\/p>\n