I vividly remember my sixth-grade gym class—changing in front of none-too-friendly classmates, showering awkwardly with more-developed strangers, getting yelled at for reading in a corner instead of doing laps (I was a bookish type). One day, before class, one of my classmates discovered a used condom on the locker room floor. “What’s that?” she asked curiously, and the other girls dissolved into giggles, ridiculing her for not knowing what a condom was. I whispered to my befuddled friend that I was equally in the dark. At eleven, I knew how babies were made, but the thought of actually having sex was foreign to me.

Like me, many adults remember being eleven as part of childhood, when it was their imaginations, not their sex lives, that were active. However, this doesn’t change the fact that many preteens are having sex and are vulnerable to all the risks that come with it. Vaccines for human papillomavirus (HPV) are now recommended primarily for eleven and twelve-year-old girls, and a middle school in Portland, Maine recently approved a plan to allow students to get prescriptions for birth control pills without parental permission.

Merck’s HPV vaccine Gardasil was licensed by the FDA in June 2006 and has since been recommended for females between the ages of 9 and 26. Another HPV vaccine, Cervarix is currently under FDA consideration. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, HPV affects at least half of sexually active individuals, including 80 percent of women, at some point during their lifetime. Some types of HPV can cause cervical cancer, the second leading cancer killer of women worldwide. Gardasil protects against four types of HPV virus, which are collectively responsible for 70 percent of cervical cancer incidents. Several states are considering making the HPV vaccine part of school vaccination requirements.

Some religious and parent groups oppose making the vaccine available in schools, believing that to do so would encourage young girls to think of sex as safe and normal. There have also been concerns about the safety of the vaccine, although it showed no serious side effects in test subjects. Portland community members are taking the same stand, arguing that dispensing birth control will make sex more acceptable for preteens. Parents and commentators have also voiced worries about whether young girls will be able to responsibly use the Pill, perhaps forgoing condoms because they believe themselves to be safe, and about the effect of birth control on developing girls’ hormones. Many parents advocate an upfront educational approach that teaches young people about the risks of sexual activity rather than, as they see it, throwing drugs at the problem.

Controversy over sex education is nothing new in this country. The Bush administration believes abstinence-only programs to be the only morally correct and effective sex education, while supporters of comprehensive programs believe that abstinence-only education promotes religion and alienates gay and lesbian teens. Multiple scientific studies have found programs that educate about contraception as well as abstinence to be more effective at discouraging sexual activity and decreasing teen pregnancies. Despite this evidence, Congress has continued to increase funding for abstinence-only education.

Our own memories of blissful ignorance at eleven are no reason to pretend that all kids of that age could be just as innocent. After all, there was a used condom on the floor of my middle school, and my classmates knew what it was; someone close to my age was having sex, never mind my naiveté. The conflict over whether the best solution to the problem is chemical or educational or some combination of the two may continue, but surely it would be worse to turn a blind eye.