Ministers tell councils to push contraceptive jabs and implants
15 Nov 2008
Full article:- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/3464466/Ministers-tell-councils-to-push-contraceptive-jabs-and-implants.html
Ministers have ordered council and health chief executives to increase the uptake of “long-acting” contraception in teen pregnancy “hot spots”. Girls as young as 13 will be pressed to have contraceptive jabs under Government plans to “urgently” bring down teenage pregnancy rates.
The government also wants more school-based clinics to administer the jabs, which can make girls infertile for up to three months.
Teenagers can receive the injections or implants without their parents’ knowledge.
The documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, show that 21 local authorities where teenage pregnancy rates have stagnated or risen have been singled out and told to push the injections and implants.
Other councils to receive the letters were Bristol, Manchester, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Rotherham, Salford, Torbay, Leeds, Bolton, Southampton, Nottingham, Sheffield, Wigan, Blackpool, Peterborough, and four London boroughs – Croydon, Enfield, Haringey, and Barking and Dagenham.
According to official figures for 2007/8, there are 1,200 girls aged under 15 taking long-acting contraception, as well as 2,900 15-year-olds and 11,500 girls aged 16 or 17.
The Government wants to see a big increase in the uptake because it has identified failures by teenage girls to take the daily pill correctly as one reason for soaring under-age pregnancies in the UK, which has higher rates than anywhere in Europe.
But some health experts oppose the move. Dr Hans Christian Raabe, a GP and medical coordinator of the Council for Health and Wholeness, a Christian organisation, said: “There are concerns that using them over long periods might have an impact on bone growth. The other issue is it gives an impression of safety that is not there. Girls will think ‘Nothing can happen to me because I can’t get pregnant.’ But the rates of sexually transmitted diseases are frightening. There has been an explosion and yet young people are given a false sense of security.
“And will it work? I have not seen a single convincing study to show that the provision of contraception leads to a reduction in teenage pregnancy. What is needed is behavioural change.”
