More than half of city parents think the Department of Education should abstain from giving their daughters the Plan B “morning after” pill, a poll commissioned by a conservative group claims.
The DOE is dispensing Plan B — which can prevent pregnancy if taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sex — along with birth-control pills and injectable contraceptives in 13 city high schools.
School nurses give the drugs to students as young as 14 without their parents’ knowledge or consent if the parents did not sign and return an “opt out” letter sent home.
Outraged that the program was started without public input, the anti-abortion Chiaroscuro Foundation commissioned polling firm Smith Johnson Research for a $22,000 study. The firm says it conducted a telephone survey of 600 New Yorkers, 400 of them under age 55.
Among the findings to be released this week:
* 52.3 percent of parents with children under 18 say the DOE should not dispense Plan B. Some 42.9 percent approve of the program, which is aimed at preventing unwanted teen pregnancies. Only 4.8 percent are undecided.
* 36.1 percent say the DOE should use an “active opt-in” system — so only students whose parents have given advance permission can obtain the birth-control. Nearly 25 percent approve of the current “opt-out” system.
* The program is most accepted in Manhattan, where just 14.8 percent of residents oppose it. The program is opposed by 51.2 percent of Staten Islanders, 41.8 percent of Queens residents, 40 percent of Brooklynites and 34.8 percent of Bronx residents.
DOE spokeswoman Erin Hughes dismissed the results. “We are not going to comment on the merits of a poll commissioned by a group opposed to comprehensive sex education and birth control,” she said.
Chiaroscuro Foundation executive director Greg Pfundstein said the poll posed questions in an unbiased way.
He insisted the results contradict the DOE’s claim of support for the program based on the 1 to 2 percent opt-out rate at the 13 schools.
“It they had accurately assessed the opinion of parents, they would have found substantial opposition,” he said.
The DOE’s Office of School Health launched the program as a pilot in five high schools last year, and expanded it without announcement this fall. The Post last month revealed the program, which is called CATCH — Connecting Adolescents to Comprehensive Health.
Marie Elliott-Saile, who has a 15-year-old daughter at Port Richmond HS on Staten Island, one of the CATCH schools, said she never got an opt-out letter before learning about the program on the news.
“It’s morally wrong,” said Elliott-Saile, whose husband is a pastor. Blasting Mayor Bloomberg, she said, “I’d rather my child drink big sodas than take those chemical pills.”