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Emergency contraception at school
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
After a pilot scheme, some UK school nurses will be allowed to hand out emergency contraceptive pills (the so-called 'morning after pill')to girls.
French schools have been doing this for some time, to reduce the teen pregnancy rate.
So, is it a good idea / a bad idea / one small part of the solution to a big problem??
Will school nurses be better than pharmacists? One of the british nurses who was interviewed thinks school nurses will be able to provide better counselling and follow-up care.
French schools have been doing this for some time, to reduce the teen pregnancy rate.
So, is it a good idea / a bad idea / one small part of the solution to a big problem??
Will school nurses be better than pharmacists? One of the british nurses who was interviewed thinks school nurses will be able to provide better counselling and follow-up care.
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Comments
My only problem with that is, that I understand it will be done without the consent of the parent or gardian. I know that these days 14 yr olds are alot more mature than I was at that age, but surely, until the child is 16, parents ought to be informed? (well, most parents lol)
It is obviously better than selling them to 14 yr olds at a chemists, because that way there would be nothing on their records, but it makes me uneasy.
j9
I had a life once, but I stopped feeding it so one day it just walked away.
MTS ^5
Our skool Nurses are LOVELY!!
We always go chat to them about anything. My mate had an abortion last yr and they helped her thru that.
I reckon so long as they introduced measures so the system cant be abused(such as you can only take it x amounts of times b4 we wont give it to u anymore/inform ur parents), its a good idea
"I just want to feel safe in my own skin. I just want to be happy again." -Dido
I've not lost my mind it's inserted elsewhere - hence the limp.
Should b totally confidential, or there will b absolutely no point giving them out at school.. If a girl new that there parents would b told.. theyd b more likely to risk it then get it.
If they are sensible and take proper preqautions then the government wouldnt have to resort to this anyway.
Many girls will see it as an excuse to have unprotected sex because they know they can go and see the school nurse.
That is why it is extrememly short sighted of the government to even consider this. If there was a better education system in place that would cut pregnancies. Promoting the emergency pill will only result in a rise of promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases. When I was at school my year had an excellent sex education system. so good that out of 200 people in the year only 2 got pregnant. If the government replicates that instead of encouraging unprotected sex maybe we'll have a proper decline in teen pregnancy.
What exactly are prequations?? lol <IMG alt="image" SRC="http://www.thesite.org/ubb/biggrin.gif">
I've not lost my mind it's inserted elsewhere - hence the limp.
at the end of the day, sex is sex. and hell, it might result in more promiscuity, it will help alot of girls who realise theyve made a big mistake, and are too afraid to go elsewhere. but also, attached to handing out the pill, they should have to sit down and talk to the nurse. and realise its not to be taken lightly. or maybe why they made that choice. i dunno.
i dont think it should be easy, and you can just walk in and walk out again, but i do think that it shouldnt be made hard. if a girl cant turn to anyone else, she should be able to turn to a confidential service at school.
this is the noise that keeps me awake. my head explodes and my body aches.
But I dare say, that in a few years time, with the same sex education, at the same school, there will be more pregnancies.
When I was in school there were two girls who got pregnant out of 700 & our sex education was pretty routine. The girls were shunned by the others in their year. It wasn't a question of contraception, it was a question of not doing it in the first place.
I'm sorry that this is largely irrelevant to the topic.
j9
I had a life once, but I stopped feeding it so one day it just walked away.
MTS ^5
i think its good & bad. good 1st of all cause its easy 2 get in an emergency, and may b easier than visitin a doc etc.
but i think bad cause girls r gonna b thinkin its ok 2 have sex cause they can get the mornin after pill easy, let alone protected but prob do it unprotected as well.
i think its just a cop out and kinda forcin girls 2 take it if they have sex, its a simple excuse.
its also sayin its ok 2 b havin sex b 4 16, not that im sayin it isant but it is law.
c ya
Well I disagree with you. The availability of birth control is not going to make people more promiscuous. That was the same argument about handing out condoms. Young people are going to have sex no matter what anyone says. Availble birth control or not.
So doesn't it make sense to have the resources there in case they screw up. I think that with the appropriate precaustions, and emphasis on preventing pregnancies before they happen (ie the pill, condoms) this futher measure is great.
But didn't the increase in teen birth rates start because it became less of a stigma for teens to get pregnant? and didn't that attitude start because peoples attitudes towards unmarried mothers relax? and didn't that come about because of the sexual revolution? and didn't the sexual revolution begin in the sixties, when the pill was released?
j9
I had a life once, but I stopped feeding it so one day it just walked away.
MTS ^5 <IMG alt="image" SRC="http://www.thesite.org/ubb/wink.gif">
[This message has been edited by j9 (edited 11-01-2001).]
I wonder if you'll have the same attitude when you have a daughter Daze?
<IMG alt="image" SRC="http://www.thesite.org/ubb/smile.gif">
j9
I had a life once, but I stopped feeding it so one day it just walked away.
MTS ^5
i agree with carriage return about it being better to provide normal contraception in schools. i mean, where else can you get it from? the pill from the docs, could be awkward for some teenagers if their parents keep close tabs on them, theyd have to skive school to go if it wasnt suitable to go outside school without questions being asked. and condoms.. well you can buy them in shops, teenagers might be embarrassed to do that (okay they shouldnt if they are gonna have sex.. my PSME teacher always said that if we were mature enough to have sex we were mature enough to either provide protection or face the consequences), public toilets, sometimes only the male ones, or from brook advisory centres/family planning clinics. again, prob with parents perhaps, and how embarrassed would you be if you were 13 and seen coming out of a family planning clinic and bumped into your maths teacher/next door neighbour/gran??
i dont think its going to increase promiscuity. teenagers are always gonna have sex. so surely its better to provide measures to help them out if something happens, eg condom splitting? it does happen. okay there are people who are just dumb about, believe stupid excuses by boyfriends who say they cant use them or that it wont matter... but who then regret it or get talked around by their friends. also the advantages of it being provided at school is better advice along with it, and a record of how many times its taken. perhaps more than twice and they refuse to give it out anymore, forcing them to buy it or see a doctor. also they should be given a lot of advice about proper protection and warned that emergency contraception is not something to be relied on if they are unable to organise their own protection due to laziness or unwillingness on either person's part.
okay think i said all i needed to say <IMG alt="image" SRC="http://www.thesite.org/ubb/smile.gif"> it'll only save me saying it all later!!
If you don't know where you're going, you'll probably end up somewhere else.
Picture the scene
Guy and gal in heavy embrace, guy wants to, girl is not sure. Girl uses, "but you haven't got a condom" excuse, guy agrees & girl doesn't have to get into some big argument about why she doesn't feel ready & she shouldn't have to do something she doesn't want to.
Rewind
Guy and gal in heavy embrace, guy wants to, girl is not sure. Girl uses, "but you haven't got a condom" excuse, guy says "that's OK, you can go & see the nurse in the morning"
j9
I had a life once, but I stopped feeding it so one day it just walked away.
MTS ^5
The normal pill messes with your hormones and stops certain processes. The emergency pill is 6 times stronger. Imagine what will happen to a girl who decides that she can have unprotected sex all the time and just get the emergency pill. It may not lead to more promiscuity but it will lead to more situations like the one J9 described.
The emergency pill is also less effective than the regular pill anyway, so she may take it thinking she is safe but be pregnant anyway. Making the whole scheme worthless. I doubt we will see a decrease in teen pregnancies, because if a girl forgets to use a condom or take her pill then chances are she'll forget to goto the nurse. And what everyone has failed to mention is what happens in the holidays???
Join the Army and travel the world, meet new and exciting people and kill them.
It would have saved me a lot of heart ache, lets face it if someone wants to have sex bad enough they are going to do it, sometimes your fanny/dick rules over ur brain, obviously not with everyone but with some people,
i agree some people may abuse it but if it prevents even one teenage girl from getting an unwanted pregnancy and having it ruining her life then its done something,
this isn't a solution to the whole problem but i think we should be happy that the government are taking steps to try and decrease teenage pregnancies, only time will tell whether it has been a good choice or not.
MTS ^5
Yep totally agree with you there J9, but what are you saying.
I mean we can't exactly go back to pre-sexual revolution days. We have to deal with the realities that young people are having sex, full stop. Ya know??
Yeah, those are EXACTLY my thoughts too Spirit.
Our school nurses suck! they walk around with faces like arses and are so unsympathetic its unbelieveable. If u were dying on the floor they probably wudnt help u.
I fink its a gud idea as long as people dont abuse it. The morning after pill shud only be used in an emergency.
The more sand that escapes through the hourglass of time, the clearer we should be able to see through it.
Basically, when I wrote that, I was just commenting on whowhere's statement that went -
I guess I was just saying "oh but it did"
I realise that we can't go backwards & in my original post I said that it just made me uneasy <IMG alt="image" SRC="http://www.thesite.org/ubb/smile.gif">
j9
I had a life once, but I stopped feeding it so one day it just walked away.
MTS ^5
people were having sex before the sexual reveloution. When girls got pregnant it was hushed up. Lots of "fully developed premature babies" born after couples got married, families with big gaps in children - the older ones were practically old enough to be parents to the younger ones. Girls going to the seaside for a few months "for their nerves" and high adoption rates
But not as much as now.
j9
I had a life once, but I stopped feeding it so one day it just walked away.
MTS ^5
DAMN!
Take a break & then come back to it JB, I value your opinion <IMG alt="image" SRC="http://www.thesite.org/ubb/smile.gif">
j9
I had a life once, but I stopped feeding it so one day it just walked away.
MTS ^5
The following links are food for thought. They're about the situation in the US, which has had and does have much higher pregnancy rates than the UK, and indeed I think any European country. The second one is lighter reading, but a touch opinionated compared to the first, which is very statistics based.
http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/or_teen_preg_decline.html http://www.ppacca.org/issues/read.asp?ID=52
What is interesting is that through both sex education and the increased use and availability of contraception, not only have teenage pregnancy rates dropped noticeably, but levels of abstinence have increased. The drop in pregnancy rates was 75% accounted for by increased use of contraception and 25% accounted for by increased abstinence. Here the two have gone hand in hand, and it is not clear at all that the contraception has encouraged promiscuity.
In my opinion, increased availability of contraceptives (including at schools, such as here) is a good thing. While having sex at an early age and having it frequently with different partners is dangerous and can lead to emotional and even physical damage, IMO teenage pregnancy is far more likely to damage teenage girl's lives, and if contraception can reduce this it is a good thing. It would obviously be preferable to encourage abstinence to achieve the same result, but this is unlikely to be achievable in the same way. Put simply, underage and teenage sex is a problem and can be dangerous, but pregnancy is much worse as a problem as I see it. If abstinence may not be linked as people assume, then better still, but this is difficult to prove as yet.
To address the other issue discussed here, it is simply wrong that pregnancy rates are much higher than in the past, and wrong that it didn't used to be much of an issue. The following links address this to some degree, but most in depth information and analysis is only really available in published books and specialist journals. Again these are US related - most material available online is - but are still useful, especially with the current (though still limited) convergence of trends and thought in the US and Britain.
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~child/conference/lindenmeyer.htm http://www.denison.edu/~hamlin_k/dubious.htm
It appears that the perception of teenage pregnancy as a modern problem is mainly false. What some people believe is that this public concern is a manifestation of a broader range of concerns about problems in our society and of the rate at which change is occurring. One worrying thing is that while most people here recognise that teenage pregnancy is an issue caused by other factors such as lack of education, many people do not and see it as a cause of other problems, 'immoral people corrupting society'. Of course the fact that there is contraception available now would seem to be masking out an increased number of teenagers having sex, but if you read that first link carefully it seems to indicate that in fact teenagers having sex tend to use contraception less effectively than they should. I think also that lots of people who do use contraception effectively, have sex and don't get pregnant are also often the ones who without contraception would probably not have sex. So I think that people might have more sex due to contraception, but that it probably doesn't affect the pregnancy rate in that way.
Overall, the studies, statistics and analysis available on the web support what I have said above I feel. I have looked at pro-life and traditional sites which argue opposite points of view, and in general they are either flawed or inadequately argue their case (due to lack of evidence I assume). In the first case (worryingly), many such sites attempt to 'defeat' their 'enemies' arguments (I use those terms in way because that is the impression you often gain from their style, if not their direct use of language) by presenting opinion as fact or as 'common sense', and often selectively and disingenuously quote their opponents out of context to misrepresent the truth. In the second case, the better sites often do present genuine problems with the studies I've looked at, however it is very hard to a study which cannot be objected to in some way. More tellingly it is hard to find studies (esp. from recent years) that support their points of view, which is often anti-contraception and even sometimes anti-sex-educational.
I'm still not as happy with this as I was before, it's lost some of the nice little bits and arguments that the original had without gaining much <IMG alt="image" SRC="http://www.thesite.org/ubb/frown.gif">. Oh well.
my only problem is that its not available to girls under 16 coz they are just as at risk of becoming pregnant through unprotected sex as girls over 16.
i'm not denying that women are stupid; God made us to match the men.