Venereal Disease

A parental-rights bill that would require a parent's or guardian's consent before physicians could treat a child for drug abuse, alcoholism or venereal disease is before the House of Delegates Environmental Matters Committee.The Evening Sun would like to know how you feel about such a bill. Should a child have parental consent before receiving treatment for drug abuse, alcoholism or venereal disease?Please call SUNDIAL, The Baltimore Sun's telephone information system, on a Touch-Tone phone.

Should physicians be required to obtain a parent's consent before treating a child for drug abuse, alcoholism or venereal disease or providing the youngster with prenatal care or sterilization?Yes, said several parents and members of groups that champion "traditional family values."They traveled to Annapolis yesterday to support a parental-rights bill that would require a parent's or guardian's consent for such treatment.Several physicians and counselors, however, also turned out to argue that some teen-agers would refuse to seek treatment if they had to tell their parents about it.The bill before the House of Delegates Environmental Matters Committee elicited a debate that carried both ethical and medical overtones.

Sex among U.S. teen-agers has become so common that more than half of all young women have had intercourse by the time they turn 20, and a majority of those have had two or more sexual partners by that age, a new study has found.The change has been due mostly to a sharp rise in sexual activity among white and higher-income female teens, while intercourse levels among minority and low-income teens have increased only slightly in the last five years, according to thestudy released this week by the Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York.

An anti-pornography group in the county is going to school with its efforts this week.The group, the Women's Christian Temperence Union based in Havre de Grace, plans to distribute a leaflet warning teachers at four Havre de Grace area schools about pornography.The county Board of Education approved distribution of the packets in teachers' mail slots at the schools.The school board receives "hundreds upon hundreds" of requests from a wide range of organizations to distribute materials to school principals, said Al Seymour, public information officer for the county board of education.

At City Hall this week, those responsible for the enlightened laws of this community are looking at Baltimore's teen-age birth rate and its venereal disease rate, and they are declaring bravely and without fear of contradiction:"Oops."Everywhere you look, sexually active teen-agers are being encouraged to use birth control. There are condom posters in schools and on buses, and there are hospitals and health clinics urging the purchase of contraceptives. Seven middle schools and high schools are giving out condoms to teens.

Faced with high rates of teen-age pregnancy and venereal disease, Baltimore's Health Department has quietly begun dispensing birth control pills and condoms to students who say they need them at seven city schools.Health clinics at selected high and middle schools have counseled sexually active city students and prescribed contraceptives since 1985, as part of providing a broad range of medical care to youngsters who might not otherwise get it.But the clinics began dispensing contraceptives last month because students could not be counted on to pick them up elsewhere, putting them at risk for pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases including acquired immune deficiency syndrome, said Elias Dorsey, acting city health commissioner.