Oxford pupils to text school nurse for morning after pill (Times online)
"Schoolgirls will be able to request the morning-after pill by text message to their school nurse as part of a scheme being introduced this year. Six schools in Oxfordshire are to take part in the project after a rise in the number of teenage pregnancies in the county.”
So will it work? Will texting the school nurse for the morning after pill really reduce teenage pregnancies?
My view is that children should be able to access emergency contraception and using a text is just one way to alert the school nurse that they need it and want it and will be coming to collect it. For some girls it’ll be a positive and responsible choice to access emergency contraception in this way. For others it’ll be something they do at a time when they are fraught with fear maybe following abuse or an attack during which unprotected sex took place. For others, it’ll be something that enables them or their partner to have unprotected sex without too much worry or concern. Easier access may even contribute to pressuring girls TO have unprotected sex when they may not want it.
As a strategy to reduce teenage pregnancies? Sorry...absolutely NO!
Emergency contraception is one tool that may contribute to what I might describe as a ‘supportive environment’ for girls or young women to make their own healthy choices around sex. And a supportive environment is just one of four types of interventions needed to solve this problem. There is no getting away from the fact that this type of contraception is an ‘emergency’ measure and is usually necessary because unprotected, casual sex (and therefore unsafe sex) has taken place or an attack has taken place. In both cases, girls could do with some counselling (to make sure it wasn’t rape) and some sort of conversation with a health professional and in the case of casual sex one that leads to the girl getting better at making healthy positive choices in the future. If, like me, the girl go to get emergency contraception due to a failure of condom use – the health professional can focus on her responsible action and thereby nourish it. In fact this is what she did do and it felt great.
My fear is that in this weird society - where the adult world is often intent on distancing itself from young people and somehow perceiving them as an enemy or a problem group that has to be sorted - that a strategy like this might really be about adults devising an easy service-delivery method. And this at a time when many girls don’t need ‘access to an efficient service’ as much as someone to comfort, support and help so they are equipped to make better choices next time round.
Lets spend our money and energy figuring out how to can get close to our young people and focus on supporting girls so they choose to have sex and become mothers when they are ready. Maybe then we would be on a road to solving this problem.
