Just two weeks after Waldo County Hospital closed its maternity and birthing unit citing declining birth rates, on Monday Rep. Jan Dodge (D-Belfast) testified before the legislature’s Education and Cultural Affairs Committee on her bill to mandate that Maine high schools expand a condom giveaway program statewide.

“My students were grateful for the availability of condoms in the nurse’s office,” Rep. Dodge told the committee, quoting an area educator in support of her bill LD 217. Dodge’s proposal, she said, is based on a program in Vermont and she initiated it at the request of a local, retired school nurse.

An amendment that Dodge added to her bill in Monday’s session would expand distribution points with the school for the condoms from the nurse’s office to other “locations authorized by the school nurse.”

When asked by a committee member Rep. Barbara Bagshaw (R-Windham) how much her bill would cost taxpayers, Dodge was not immediately able to answer, but the fiscal note associated with it suggest it would run about $20,000 a year.

Citing prospective cuts to Maine’s education budget stemming from Governor Janet Mills’ administration’s insistence on defying President Donald Trump’s executive order banning biological males from participating in school sports, Rep. Bagshaw also asked whether Dodge thought this was “the best use of taxpayer dollars at this time.”

“Considering what’s coming out of Washington, DC, yes,” Dodge responded, alluding to anticipated efforts by the Trump administration to restrict access to birth control. Prior to Bagshaw’s question, Dodge also offered this projection as a justification for her bill in her testimony before the committee.

According to the Maine Integrated Youth Health Survey, more than half (52 percent) of teens are sexually active by senior year in high school, retired nurse Janice Hogan — the constituent Dodge cited as the impetus for her bill — testified. 8.5 of 1,000 students on average experience accidental pregnancies, she said.

Committee member Rep. Kimberly Haggen (R-Hampden) asked one of the three advocates of the measure who testified after Dodge whether abstinence was being taught in high school sex education classes as one reliable method of birth control, but the witness was unable to provide an immediate answer.

Following the de facto admission by MaineHealth by Waldo Hospital’s becoming the first in Maine to stop providing obstetric care that procreation in Waldo County is on the decline, a taxpayer-funded condom giveaway seems oddly-timed.

The committee will now take up the bill for more detailed consideration at a yet-to-be scheduled work session.