As a generally social and fiscal conservative, I find myself leaning to the right on just about every issue. The recent controversy over schools distributing contraceptives and birth control, however, has me at a more moderate stance.

Having these conservative values, I would rather see an 11-year-old walking out of the nurse’s office with a condom or birth control than walking into Planned Parenthood for an abortion; I feel it’s the lesser of two evils. I’m not saying it’s morally right, but at some point we have to put aside out idealistic nature and realize not everyone is a good parent, and we need to help protect these neglected, misguided children in any way we can. If we can’t flat out stop them from being sexually active, well then we need to at least stop them from getting pregnant, if at all possible.

From a fiscal standpoint, I question how much of our hard-earned tax dollars will go toward essentially raising a child when a teenaged mom starts to receive state aid, like TANF, WIC, MaineCare, food stamps, all the slew of social programs because she had to drop out of school to raise her kid.

Obviously these are two “worst-case scenarios.”

Being conservative by nature, I prefer the “plan for the worst, hope for the best” philosophy.

Jeff Purcell, Lewiston