AUGUSTA — If the state Senate has its way, the Legislature will decide whether Maine children who want prescription birth control need their parents' permission to get it.
The Senate told a legislative committee Tuesday to draft a bill addressing the issue. The senator who pushed for that vote hopes it will pave the way for a law requiring parental consent.
The effort stems from last year's controversy over the availability of contraception at a city-run health center in Portland's King Middle School.
That fight drew national attention, focusing on Portland. If the Legislature becomes involved, the issue would be debated on a statewide basis.
The Senate's decision is not binding unless the House of Representatives goes along with it. The House will take up the issue as soon as today.
The Senate's 29-5 vote in favor of the plan surprised activists on both sides of the issue. Even observers who had predicted passage said they had thought the vote would be much closer.
Speculation varied as to why lawmakers in both parties, including some moderate and liberal Democrats, voted for the order.
Senate Majority Leader Elizabeth Mitchell, D-Vassalboro, who backed the order but opposes a consent requirement, said many Senate Democrats believe the Legislature should air the issue and determine "if there is common ground" on it.
Senate President Beth Edmonds, D-Freeport, one of the five dissenters, said, "This is a local control issue."
The effort represents a renewed campaign by Sen. Douglas Smith, R-Dover-Foxcroft, to let parents decide whether schools can provide contraception to children.
Legislative leaders refused to let Smith introduce a parental-consent bill this session, so he is trying to bypass them by getting the full Legislature to have a committee take up the issue.
If the House goes along with the Senate in instructing the Health and Human Services Committee to draft legislation, Smith would ask that panel to consider his bill, which would keep children younger than 18 from obtaining prescription contraceptives without the approval of their parents in most cases.
Smith would exempt emancipated children, as well as children whose history of family violence makes it impractical for them to obtain parental permission.
"It's a bill that is designed to keep parents in control of their children," Smith said after the Senate vote.
"I'm not opposed to parents giving consent" for their children to receive contraceptives, Smith said. "It's that they need to be consulted."
Smith's campaign pits the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland and the Christian Civic League of Maine, which support his efforts, against Planned Parenthood of North New England.
"I think we saw a case where a number of senators feared political ramifications, possibly," if they opposed a legislative review, even though Smith's effort is "an election-year political stunt," said Chris Quint of Planned Parenthood.
Quint said children whose parents are abusive or uninterested may be unable to obtain permission. He said that requiring parents to sign off on providing contraceptives would endanger more than $1 million a year in federal family-planning funding in Maine.
Michael Heath of the Christian Civic League of Maine said, "The experiment that King Middle School decided to undertake is dangerous."
He said the school is "offering contraception to children who, according to our laws, shouldn't even be involved in sexual activity in any way," and it is doing so without parents' consent.
The issue took center stage in Portland, and triggered a national media frenzy, when the city's School Committee voted 7-2 in October to make King Middle School the first middle school in Maine where prescription birth control would be made available to students at a clinic.
Under current policies, students need parental consent...
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