CNN's Alina Cho on birth control given to New York City high school students: 'many parents may be clueless'

More than a dozen New York high schools are currently raising eyebrows and concern from parents for offering morning-after pulls and other birth control drugs to students. Parents may be unaware if their teens are taking the drugs, which are all part of a program called CATCH which was formed to prevent teen pregnancies. CNN's Alina Cho joins “Early Start” this morning with details on the risky initiative and how parents are responding to it.

Alino Cho reports that the schools participating in the pilot program, which has been quietly active since January of 2011, “have been picked because the students there were known to have a higher risk of getting pregnant and a lower access to healthcare.”

She cites that over 1,100 students in 14 high schools have been given the so called morning-after pill, or Plan B. “The most surprising part of all of this… is that many parents may be clueless about it. The students do not need the permission from their parents to get the pill,” and are allowed to get it unless parents sign a letter opting out of the program, says Cho.

While we’re told that the letters were sent home and mailed, “the Department of Health says that no more than two percent of parents at each school sent them back,” Cho says. Cho and Sambolin offer that kids may prevent parents from ever getting the letter. “You don’t bring it home and you intercept the mail,” Sambolin says.