Contraception provision has little or no effect on reducing teenage pregnancy rates
Blogged by James Preece on 1st March 2012
Via SPUC, we have Professor David Paton, professor of industrial economics at Nottingham University Business School, who told the media on Tuesday:
"The fall in conception rates to minors is to be welcomed. The decrease in the rate of conceptions ending in abortion for under-16s over the past three years is particularly good news, although it is still higher than in 1999, when the last government introduced its Teenage Pregnancy Strategy. Since that time, there appears to be no correlation at all between changes to contraceptive services for young people and changes in the conception rate. For example, the number of contraceptive clinic sessions offered specifically for young people was static in 2010 following increases in previous years. Despite this, the teenage conception rate continued to fall in 2010.
Indeed, Anne Milton, the health minister, just last week stated the following when questioned about recent cuts to contraception services: 'Statistics on conceptions ... and abortions ... do not suggest that any recent changes to contraception provision offered by PCTs has had an impact on the number or rate of conceptions or abortions.' This bears out studies in the peer-reviewed literature which show that access to birth control (and in particular the morning-after pill) has little or no causal effect in reducing teenage pregnancy rates."[link]
With no contraceptive services teenagers are hesitant to engage in sexual activity but some do and there is a resulting rate of conception.
Introduce contraceptive services and sexual activity becomes 'safer' so we might expect to see a fall in the rate of conception but we don't. Why? Because promotion of 'safe' sex means that more teenagers take the risk and the resulting rate of conception is almost identical.
In fact - for those teenagers who wouldn't have had sex if contraception were not promoted, the risk has actually increased.
Reader Comments
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New Friend said...
James
You are much younger than me. When I went to school I was given no sex education at all. Not at home, or in school. Nothing, and this was the "swinging sixties". That did not stop our interest in the subject. We just had to find out via our peers and through experience. Girls were terrified of getting pregnant and insisted on condom use. Of course the rates of STDs were much lower and HIV did not exist.
I cannot imagine turning the clock back to those days. Too many other things have happened for it to be successful. Kids, even quite young kids, are just too aware these days, and try as you might you are not going to keep the big world hidden from them.
Therefore it has to be right to provide sex education, but I think the emphasis is probably far too tipped towards the physical and not sufficiently towards the emotional.
So I cannot believe that withdrawing contraception services, as the necessary follow up to the sex and relationship education, will pay dividends. It may well be that this report is accurate and that adjustments are needed to the programme as a consequence, but to conclude it would be better for there to not be a programme is, I believe false.
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Catherine said...
NF sAYS
!I was given no sex education at all. Not at home, or in school. "
Therein lies the heart of the problem....and why in a sense NF is among the countless victims of the culture of death as s many of the present generation...that the one place the best place ordained by God and natureal law to form the young heart and conscinece in human sexuality [sex education is an oxymoron in my view] i.e the home ...the parents failed as do so many parents continually failin their duty to be the rpimary eduactors of their offspring NOT the state nor the agents of the state the schools in authentic human sexuality. But then we're talking of countless parents over 6 or 7 generations since the 'birth' of the birth control movement who have been stripped of this inalienable right and duty to their sons and daughrers to the point that it will soon be outlawed for parents to teach their children anything contrary to the all pervading neo marxist hedonism intoxicating everyu level of society....
parents must rise up and lay claim to what is their's for no one wlese will hand it back to them willingly despite all the nice pro parent pro family rhetoric even of the Church.
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New Friend said...
Catherine
I was just being honest in my description of what things used to be like. It seems to me that your, and those who think the same way, solution to what I acknowledge is a problem is to go back to where things are perceived as they used to me. There are many problems with that.
Firstly, many of you are too young to know what it was really like 50 years ago, and just imagine a rosy world of Mum and Dad and 2.4 children, living in blissful harmony. You imagine we can take that model and build on it. Take the state away and leave everything to a pair of loving parents, who in many cases don't really exist.
Secondly, and most importantly, we don't live in the 60's anymore. You cannot change one part of a recipe and expect the dish to become something else. If the 60's were roast beef and 2 veg, and 2012 chicken tikka masala, then changing the rice for potato is still not going to make it roast beef. We now have the internet, facebook, cell phones, easy international travel. We have vastly faster information exchanges, more knowledge and much greater expectations. The genie is out of the bottle and he is not going back in.
You cannot go back. You can only go forward. What you suggest might have worked back in the 60's. It isn't going to work now. All you are doing through your wailing and moralising is adding to the noise. It makes no practical contribution to solving the problem. Expecting society as a whole to embrace your version of the Christian God, and your interpretation on what He commanded, is never going to happen, even if it was desirable which is itself highly questionable.
The answer to a failing system of sex education and contraceptive provision is not to abandon it. In 2012 that would be a total disaster. What we need is to study it's shortcomings and failings and seek to improve them. We need better services, not no services.
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Teresa said...
It may seem counter intuitive to say that increased contraceptive services do not reduce rates of teenage pregnancy however it does seem that this is the case. It is difficult to promote sexual abstinence whilst providing contraceptive services for minors at the same time. Our society provides very mixed messages for young people. If contraception services are easily available many teenagers will conclude that adults expect them to be sexually active. It also concerns me that underage children are given access to contraceptive services with very few questions asked. It seems to me that we are prepared to issue contraceptives to young people rather than assess whether they might be in need of another types of help. Evidence suggests that teenagers who become sexually active at a young age tend to have other problems; for example issues with self-esteem, problems with family relationships, with alcohol or drugs. The simplistic response seems to be to provide them contraception; no wonder it is not working.
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Chrysostom said...
What confusion is revealed in these responses! Let us have some Catholic Truth. Anyone who corrupts children can expect a fate worse than being in the bottom of the ocean with a millstone round his neck. I take it that I have no need to identify the Author of the quotation. Schools are explicitly forbidden by the teaching of several popes from giving ANY sex education without the explicit permission of the parents. No sex education must be given at all at the primary level. Britain has the highest rates of sexually-transmitted diseases, teenage pregnancy, teenage abortion etc in the whole of Europe. These figures are CAUSED by the sex-education that is provided even in so-called Catholic schools. LEAVE ASIDE THE MORALITY, IT DOES NOT WORK. A quick comparison: Ireland does not have anything like the same rates of teenage pregnancy, abortion, venereal disease. I wonder if there is a reason for this.
The contribution of New Friend is evidence: "Of course the rates of STDs were much lower and HIV did not exist." Exactly: sex education causes more sexual activity as it is intended to do. It results in sexually-transmitted diseases, abortion and other horrors, as it is intended to do.
Our Lady Help of Christians - pray for us.
St Athanasius - pray for us
All Ye English Martyrs - pray for us.
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New Friend said...
Chrysostom
Interesting. Do you seriously think that stopping sex education and contraception provision, without any other changes, will improve things? If not, how do you expect to actually get the other necessary changes implemented?
I am sorry to tell you that the Pope, nor any of his predecessors since Henry VIII, have any influence over what should be taught in schools in the UK. So the decision on how and what to teach on sex and relationships is determined by us, and not by anyone sitting in Rome. What an insult that anyone should consider he should be involved! That we permit parents to withdraw children from such education is indicative of our sensitivity on this subject and not anything to do with the Pope.
It's a long time since I was in Ireland but from what I remember there was every bit as much promiscuity there as in the UK. They like to have a "good time". I came across this quote, which seems to conflict with your view and comes from "irishhealth.com":-
"Ireland's 'hit and miss' approach to sex education has failed, with the result that many young people reach adulthood without a proper understanding of how their body works, the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) has said.
It has called for the development of more comprehensive and explicit education programmes to inform young people about sexuality and reproduction.
"Recent surveys from three health board areas show that 25% of Irish teenagers are sexually active by the age of 16. However many are unaware of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and some do not link sex to having a child", said Catherine Heaney, chief executive of the IFPA.
Furthermore there has been an increase in the number of Irish teenagers travelling to Britain for abortions.
"There is a glaring need to improve the quality of information that young people are receiving. By the time they become sexually active, young people should have a good understanding of sexuality and reproduction. They should feel empowered to make positive choices about their sexual behaviour, without exposing themselves to the risk of a crisis pregnancy or STI", Ms Heaney added."
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Eoin said...
The IFPA he he, oh yeah they are going to tell the truth. You swallow anything don t you, NF/OF as long as its not true or moral.I have lived in Dublin for 25 years, whilst its not snow white, and is certainly worse than it was, the levels of promiscuity are way below the UK s where I also have lived in the past.
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New Friend said...
Eoin
Why should anyone believe you and not the IFPA? I am perfectly prepared to accept that your own experience of Dublin and the UK lead you to a personal opinion. The IFPA, of whom I had never heard until today, also have an opinion, which does not really contradict yours at all. I am quite sure that their surveys won't be falsified. What they suggest is that there is still a problem in Ireland which is caused by an incoherent policy, for which their solution is the introduction of effective sex education.
If what you say is true, and there is less promiscuity in Ireland than the UK, but that there still is an increasing problem, then it is somewhat ironic that the solution you propose is diametrically opposed to that being recommended in Ireland. Your policy, or something very like it, is what is currently in place in Ireland. It obviously isn't working well enough. To suggest that we do the same in the UK, which by your reasoning is already worse, is hardly going to improve things. If true, the lower level of promiscuity in Ireland could be caused by any number of things, but I would guess primarily by the residual Catholic culture. We don't have that in the UK and that is not going to change anytime soon. We need to strengthen and improve our sex and relationship education and not abandon it. To suggest otherwise seems unbelieveable to me.
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Eoin said...
"Solution I propose" Where did I propose a solution? What was it ? Its news to me.
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New Friend said...
Eoin
Not "you" personally, but "you" collectively as Catholics, as suggested earlier in the thread. If you personally dissociate yourself from them then I apologise for including you. Do you dissociate yourself?
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Eoin said...
I concur totally with the headline of this posting. Because its true. More of the same , clearly, will not help.,
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New Friend said...
Eoin
Concurring with the headline is not the same as agreeing with the inferred conclusion, which was that it would be better if sex education and contraception provision were withdrawn and everyone returned to a time of ignorance.
I can almost agree with the headline myself, or at least where it is coming from. My answer is to review and improve the service to ensure it is really effective, and not to have "pie in the sky" idealistic dreams of a return to a time long gone and never to return.
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Eoin said...
Wrong again OF. The conclusion is that PROPER sex education be provided,not a return to anything.Hard to do, but certainly not pie in the sky.
Interestingly as contraception becomes more accepted in Ireland. Teenage pregancy goes up , almost in line. So the headline is spot on, not just in the UK.I am not totally opposed to contraception, but I do realise also, thats its not a answer to these problems.
The Church is the oldest institution on the planet, it knows human nature back to front. Its never easy to follow the right path, and most people will always choose the easy one. We know where that leads.
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Salisbury John said...
actually marriage [the lifelong exclusive union of one man and one woman open to life] is the oldest institution on the planet [the one thing not washed away by the Flood] and with out it the instituion that is the Church both Latin and Eastern Orthodox simply cannot survive.
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New Friend said...
John
Marriage, it seems, has been around in one form or another since mankind became civilised. However, for most of that time it meant something very different to that which we recognise today. Wives were the property of their husbands, who could, dependant on the society take other wives, divorce them at will, or take a lover. Wives were taken to ensure that a man's children were truly his. Marriage was a practical matter, and nothing to do with love. It was only in relatively recent times that the Church got involved and started to regulate things.
So to try to claim that what you recognise as marriage is cast in stone for all time is just not accurate. It has been evolving and is continuing to do so.
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Salisbury John said...
NF/OF you can believe that notion of the evolution of spousal commitment as much as you imagine it consolidates your irrational rationale for the anything goes "morality" you seek to purvey on this blog....but the FACT is that the Church teaches as dogmatically true and therefore infallible that Christ raised the union of man and woman to the dignity of a sacrament. Nothing - no law, no lobby, no growing movement of dissent even among Christians will EVER change this FACT -no matter how against the law even such a dogma might become [and I concede that such a thing might actually come about]
This is THE issue of our generation and in the history of human civilisation that must and will separate the wheat from the chaff ....it cannot be any other way....to deny true marriage is to blaspheme directly against the Blessed Trinity.....God will not be mocked!
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New Friend said...
John
No-one denies you the right to hold that opinion, or will intefere with the right to act upon it within your own community.
However if others don't feel the same way, and many don't, what right have you got to deny them their opinion or their right to act upon it?
We no longer, thankfully, live in a theocracy, so your opinion counts only as an individual. If you manage to persuade enough that you are right then you will achieve what you want. If not, and I suspect you won't, then the law is going to change.
You can sit on the sidelines and complain as much as you wish about it being wrong and a blasphemy, but it will make no difference. That is quite right too. Religion needs to be seen for what it is, which is a personal matter only. It should have no role of any kind in public decision making, beyond informing those individuals who believe in it.
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Salisbury John said...
NF you just don't get it do you? but then of course you don't....
it is precisely because all that you say must prevail....will prevail that people without exception [beginning within the Church] will be forced to make a simple choice between life and death, between God or abject evil.
In informal remarks given in 1980, Blessed Pope John Paul II said:
"We must be prepared to undergo great trials in the not-too-distant future; trials that will require us to be ready to give up even our lives, and a total gift of self to Christ and for Christ. Through your prayers and mine, it is possible to alleviate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it, because it is only in this way that the Church can be effectively renewed. How many times, indeed, has the renewal of the Church been effected in blood? This time, again, it will not be otherwise. We must be strong, we must prepare ourselves, we must entrust ourselves to Christ and to His Mother, and we must be attentive, very attentive, to the prayer of the Rosary." —interview with Catholics at Fulda, Germany, Nov. 1980; www.ewtn.com
But the Holy Father also said something crucial in his statement to the American Bishops when he addressed them as a cardinal in 1976. That this…
"…final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel and the anti-Gospel… lies within the plans of divine providence." —reprinted November 9, 1978, issue of The Wall Street Journal;
In other words just as the aggressive culture of death secularists who worship before their idol of free choice and libertraiansim imagine that they have won the day... the fact is that we who believe know that God is permitting such a "victory" because it's part of His far far greater plan to win more souls through His Divine Mercy. so you see .the more you and your kind marginalise objective truth in the True Religion the greater the blessings and graces for those who hold fast to it....
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New Friend said...
John
It is precisely because of this sort of nonsense that I could never become a believer.
Those who don't agree with you are, in the main, ordinary decent people who just come to another conclusion. They have standards, they love and they care. They are not purveyors of "abject evil" just because they think differently and to suggest something like that is really both insulting and pretty silly.
The idea that you might be prepared to spill blood to force your ideas on others does you no credit at all. Those days have to be over. We must allow opinions to be expressed and reason to prevail. The only justification for violence is in self defence and as no-one will attack you with anything other than words, you have no justification for such statements.
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Catherine said...
it is good that John is not alone in his belief in Christ's words 'if they persecute me they will persecute you too' for
"in 2010, [Cardinal George of Chicago] further outlined the degree to which he believed religious freedoms (in the United States and other Western societies) was endangered. After the passage of legislation that enabled Civil Unions in Illinois, his eminence stated, "I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square"
TOWARD TOTALITARIANISM
In a talk given by Fr. Joseph Esper, he outlines the stages of persecution:
Experts agree that five stages of a coming persecution can be identified:
(1) The targeted group is stigmatized; its reputation is attacked, possibly by mocking it and rejecting its values.
(2) Then the group is marginalized, or pushed out of the mainstream of society, with deliberate efforts to limit and undo its influence.
(3) The third stage is to vilify the group, viciously attacking it and blaming it for many of society’s problems.
(4) Next, the group is criminalized, with increasing restrictions placed on its activities and eventually even its existence.
(5) The final stage is one of outright persecution.
Many commentators believe the United States is now in stage three, and moving into stage four. —www.stedwardonthelake.com
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New Friend said...
Catherine
This is a clear indication of the persecution complex which runs through the veins of many Catholics. It just isn't true. I make you this promise. I disagree with many of the things that you believe but I strongly believe in your right to believe them. If anyone really tried to persecute you for your beliefs then I, and many others who think like me, would be lined up alongside you to defend you.
All that I, and those who share my views want, is for religion to become something personal and not involved in any aspect of public life. Once that is achieved I will be satisfied. People will be free to make their own decisions about whether to join and to follow. There is, and there will never be, any persecution. A removal of current priviledges for sure, but no persecution.
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New Friend said...
Eoin
I would not disagree that we need to give proper sex education, although I suspect we might disagree about what that actually means. I am glad to learn that you seem to accept that we cannot just go back to where we were.
For me it means much more concentration on the importance of relationships and less on the physical. I also strongly believe that this cannot just be left to the parents. Parents are not trained for such a task, nor in many cases are they willing to take it on. The ideal family situation where two loving and committed parents are devoted to their children, and have enough time to handle these things properly, is just not a reality for everyone. Indeed I would say only a small minority fall into such a category these days. Which is why this needs to be organised outside the home. All the idealism in the world is pointless. We need practical solutions for real problems.
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gil said...
James your tiresome New Friend is a bit of a pain. Can you not bar his comments? Seriously, the comments section of your blog is becoming un-readable because of his persistent teenage wittering. If I want vacuity I listen to Radio 2.
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New Friend said...
Gil
Just commented on this elsewhere. Just for your information I am 67, and have teenage grandchildren. I am a Radio 4 listener and if I am vacuous what on earth does that make many of the other comments. Some are, quite literally, beyond belief.
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