13 NYC Public Schools Now Offering Morning After Pill to Students -- Without Parental Consent

NEW YORK (TheBlaze/AP) -- File this one under "controversial." The New York City Department of Education is making the morning-after-pill available to high school girls at 13 public schools.

The DOE says girls as young as 14 will be able to get the Plan B emergency contraception without parental consent.

Parents have been notified about the CATCH (Connecting Adolescents To Comprehensive Health) pilot program and how their daughters can opt out of it. The New York Post has more about the controversial program:

It might be a nationwide...The National Association of School Nurses could cite no other school district supplying Plan B.

So far, during an unpublicized pilot program in five city schools last year, 567 students received Plan B tablets and 580 students received Reclipsen birth-control pills, the city Department of Health told The Post.

This fall, students can also get Depo-Provera, a birth-control drug injected once every three months, officials said.

Oral and injectable contraceptives require prescriptions, which, in the CATCH program, are written by Health Department doctors.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn says she supports the program because high school students are sexually active and getting pregnant.

The city says about 7,000 girls get pregnant by the time they reach the age of 17. It says more than half choose to get an abortion.

NYC schools already distribute free condoms to students.