(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

Saw this headline in the online Sun Herald: "Morning after pill to face new ban" with this subheading: "Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott wants to make the controversial morning after pill a prescription-only drug just six months after it was made available over the pharmacy counter."

Thought, "Hmmm, there have been concerns raised about inadequate medical advice given to women by pharmacists - maybe that would be the right thing to do."

Actually read the article. "Citing concern about reports of girls as young as 13 requesting the emergency contraception, Mr Abbott said..."

Slapped forehead. This isn't about women's health. Duh. It's about punishing teenage girls who have sex by forcing them to have pregnancies* or abortions. (The federal govt also wants to make children's health records available to their parents, preventing many youngsters from discussing sexual health or contraception with their doctors. This will cost lives.) Sensible response from health worker: "The bigger question is how can sex education programs ensure there is no need for the morning after pill." Few thirteen year olds are mature enough or knowledgeable enough to make good decisions about sex - they need all the help and advice they can get before the (f)act. The government's attempt to keep kids ignorant and then punishing girls (and not boys) for that ignorance is transparent hypocrisy.

When a pharmacist sells the morning-after pill, not only should they be able to provide advice, but everyone buying it should be given a free booklet in their first language which includes a URL and well-staffed 1-800 number for further advice.

Oddly, there's no sign of a ban on liposuction on 15 year old girls - with their parents' consent.




* The morning-after pill mostly works by preventing ovulation, thus preventing conception. It can also work by preventing the egg from being moved to the uterus, also preventing conception; and by preventing an embryo from implanting in the uterine wall, preventing pregnancy. More info from PPFA.

Comments

[vindaloo-vixen.livejournal.com]

I agree with you and the health-worker. I'd also be concerned about 13-year-olds getting the morning-after pill, but because of the need for someone as young as thirteen to be after it in the first place, not because there needs to be a rash of early-teen mothers in the world. (Oh, what the hell, 30 years is too long for a generation, right?)

Not that I haven't always found this a worry in itself, but not long ago I had a particular moment that brought the matter into sharp relief. On a bus travelling to work, and a girl got on...and I definitely mean 'girl', not 'woman' or even 'young woman'. 'Girl' in the colloquial-free 'young' sense. And this girl was, in no uncertain terms, very very pregnant. She went on to chat to her friends (as teenagers are wont to do), and not very quietly, which saved me the trouble of eavesdropping.

What struck me, though, was that this youngsters...well, I was forced to think, You just don't have any idea what's happening to you, do you? I don't think she was aware - really aware that she was having a baby.

(Sorry, these are thoughts difficult to relay into proper English with a head full of fluff as I have this morning.)

Now, I could have been wrong about this particular girl, after all my experience is largely limited to a teenage bus conversation. For all I know her life's terribly in order and she's won a Pulitzer and Mother of the Year since then. But even if I was off the mark about her herself, there are definitely those out there who are as she seemed to be to me.

I don't know why in particular this one struck me. I've lived in big(ish) cities for almost three decades, it's not like I've never seen examples of teenage fertility before. Maybe it just tied in with other things that had been happening then-recently.

(One of those other things was someone I knew getting into drugs - again, clearly actually unaware of the dangers. People willing to risk themselves in full knowledge are one thing, people who are charging in non- or wrongly-informed are another. This one clearly genuinely believed that ecstacy was completely safe, and that science was desperately trying to prove otherwise to no avail. But I digress. Sort of.)

What good is there in opening all the children's medical records for their parents? It was precisely such a fear that stopped me from getting help I needed for so long. (There, speaking of young people being uninformed.) Panicked teenagers would avoid getting help they need for fear of their parents finding out...or, and this can be even worse, try to deal with things by alternate routes.

I confess I didn't know until recently that the morning-after pill wasn't prescription at the moment (an unusual thing for me not to know, given my interest in pregnancy, but there you go), but I guess I can see reasons both ways why this should or should not be so.

Good Glenda, if that really is the case, I don't think 'punishing' these teenage girls is going to help anyone in the long run. If the pharmacists aren't following the proper guidelines for dispensing it, well... that is the problem, not that they were recommended in the first place. There's so much head-in-the-sand-y stuff going on here. Not to mention images of creating some sort of 'utopia' where teenagers don't do what adults don't want them to.

Gordon Bennett.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time, when there was little or no effective contraception or protection from STDs, sex could easily result in unplanned pregnancy, illness, or death. But obviously, pregnancy and disease were intended to punish people - particularly women - for having sex; if you have sex, you *ought* to "fall" pregnant or "fall" ill. If teenagers use contraception, they avoid the punishment they're *supposed* to be getting. (This is also why some pro-lifers say abortion is acceptable in the case of rape or incest: women should only be punished if they *wanted* the sex.)

I'd also like to know who's having unprotected sex with thirteen year old girls. I *hope* mostly it's thirteen year old boys, who are probably just as immature and ill-informed. But I have my doubts.

[vindaloo-vixen.livejournal.com]

'I *hope* mostly it's thirteen year old boys, who are probably just as immature and ill-informed. But I have my doubts.'

I remember I saw a television program with twenty-something guys (I mean they were young, not there were lots of them) who had fathered children with girls in their (the girls') early teens, and shudderingly, below. Their opinion? They actually said: If someone was capable of articulating that they wanted sex, that meant they were informed enough to make that decision and it was up to them. (No, they really felt no responsibility for what they had done. And the girls didn't seem to be great examples of informed maturity either, come to that...)

Just...rrrg. Really.

[dark-pheonix.livejournal.com]

Oddly, there's no sign of a ban on liposuction on 15 year old girls

I think I'm going to be ill. Ye gods...

[(Anonymous)]

With regard to the morning after pill, the side-effects of the UK (http://www.fpa.org.uk/guide/emergncy/index.htm) one includes nausea, dizziness and a more-painful-than-normal period due to the forced removal of the uterinal lining*. If the nausea is so bad that you throw up, the treatment cannot be immediately repeated.

*that's what is euphemistically called "inhibiting implantation". By removing the lining, there is nothing for the maybe-embyro to grab onto. Trust me, this hurts.

No-one who has taken it once will start using it casually when less drastic options such as the pill are available. The main thing this Health Minister should be asking is why the boys/men who impregnate these girls are not wearing condoms.

Mags (http://moosiferjonesgrouch.blogspot.com)