1/3/2008

The Daily Mail, a United Kingdom publication, is reporting that one in fifty teenagers between the ages of 13 and 15 will become pregnant.

This figure, the worst in all of western Europe, in part due to lack of sex education as well as the availability of birth control in England and Wales. The result? About half of those pregnant teenagers used abortion as birth control.

Poorer regions of Wales and England were up to 18 times more likely to get pregnant than wealther areas such as London. Nottingham Univesity Business School economist David Paton attributes these appaling pregnancy rates to more than just a lack of sex education and birth control. Paton believes the Goverment's approach to the teen pregnancy problem to be ineffective. The Government strategy to date has focused on providing family planning and birth control, often in the form of the morning after pill. According to Paton, this strategy is ineffective in areas where the breakdown of familes and influence of religion. Without these teenagers are less likely to seek out help at a family planning clinic. Or in many cases, they may not know this help is availble. In other cases, the family planning clinics don't address the issues of these teenagers. Instead of recognizing the breakdown of families, many of family planning clinics provide an education not fitting the realities the lives of the teenagers.

Paton provides surprising bleak numbers.

"Looking across the different local authorities there is a very mixed picture, but it is noteworthy that some of the areas which have been at the forefront of providing contraceptive services to under 16s without parental consent are among the worst performers," he said.

"For example, in Manchester, the first local authority to allow emergency birth control to be provided to under 16s free of charge at pharmacies, the under 16 conception rate has increased by 47.9 per cent since 2000 and 31.8 per cent in the past year.

"We are getting more and more evidence that the current policy of providing easier access to contraception for minors has little or no overall impact on conception rates.

"It is somewhat surprising that the Government continues to spend millions on a policy that has so little evidence in its favour."

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