Boots chemist should not have capitulated to pressure from BPAS over emergency contraception

Last night I waded into the debate on whether Boots should reduce the price of the so-called ‘morning-after pill’ and criticised the high street chemist for ‘capitulating in the face of political pressure’. 

Let me explain why.

Boots had originally defied calls to slash the price of ‘emergency contraception’ – with its chief pharmacist saying it did not want to ‘incentivise inappropriate use’.

But late on Friday night Boots released a statement to say it was ‘truly sorry’ about its ‘poor choice of words’, and was looking at cheaper alternatives (see here, here, here, here and here).

The about-face was the result of a high-level campaign on social media by abortion provider BPAS and a group of 35 Labour women MPs.

It all began when BPAS (the British Pregnancy Advisory Service) wrote to Boots’ head pharmacist, Marc Donovan, pointing out that generic versions of the Levonelle brand of emergency hormonal contraception can be bought cheaply by pharmacies and can retail for as little as £5.50 in France. By comparison, Boots charges £26.75 for its own version.

Mr Donovan wrote back to say that if Boots did make the pill cheap it could be ‘accused of incentivising inappropriate use’.

This led to an explosion on social media from Labour women MPs calling for women to boycott the chemist and forcing Boots to back down.

I have three main concerns about this whole furore.

First, public policy decisions about women’s health should not be made on the hoof after twitter rants especially when these are strongly ideologically motivated. They should rather be made after proper and robust debate on the facts. The knee-jerk assumption of most people is that making emergency contraception readily available either free or cheap over the counter without prescription will reduce unplanned pregnancies and safeguard women’s health. In fact there is no evidence to suggest that this is actually true (see below).

This latest broadside needs to be seen for what it is – part of a high level campaign by  abortion industry leader BPAS – which receives £30miliion of taxpayers money annually – to advance its agenda of abortion on demand up to birth and free contraception for all. They are prepared to bully, blackmail and boycott to achieve their agenda and sadly few are willing to stand up to them. If MPs wish to influence pharmacy practice they should raise it in the House of Commons in a responsible way, not form a social media lynch mob.

Second, all the evidence suggests that ready availability of emergency contraception does nothing to reduce abortion rates and actually increases rates of sexually transmitted diseases.

For a start levonelle is not 100% effective in any given case.  Its success rate is relatively low (95% within 24 hours of sexual intercourse, 85% from 25-48 hours and 58% from 49-72 hours). 

A 2012 study in Washington State showed that free access to emergency contraception caused a statistically significant increase in STI rates (specifically gonorrhoea rates) and no change in birth and abortion rates.

The results were almost identical to those of a British study published in the Journal of Health Economics (full text) in December 2010 and reported in the Daily Telegraph in January 2011. (See my previous blogs on this here and here).  The researchers found that rates of pregnancy among girls under 16 remained the same, but that rates of sexually transmitted infections increased by 12%.

In fact, in a systematic review published in 2007, twenty-three studies published between 1998 and 2006 measured the effect of increased EC access on EC use, unintended pregnancy, and abortion. Not a single study among the 23 found a reduction in unintended pregnancies or abortions following increased access to emergency contraception (see also fact sheet here).

The phenomenon whereby applying a prevention measure results in an increase in the very thing it is trying to prevent is known as ‘risk compensation’. The term has been applied to the fact that the wearing of seatbelts does not decrease the frequency of some forms of road traffic injuries since drivers are thereby encouraged to drive more recklessly. In the same way ready access to emergency contraception encourages young people to take more risks and can also be used as a tool by abusers to negotiate for sex.

In 2015 the total number of new STI diagnoses in England was 434,456. This included more than 129,000 diagnoses of chlamydia (a major cause of infertility) in 15-24-year-olds.  Young females are more at risk of a diagnosis than young males. The male diagnosis rate among 15 to 19-year olds was 824.4 per 100,000 population and 1,693.8 among 20-24-year-olds compared to 2,436.8 among 15 to 19-year-old females and 2,557 among females aged 20-24. Gonorrhoea is also most common among the 20-24 age group, with a rate of 269.5 per 100,000 population.

So making the emergency contraceptive pill available over the counter free or cheap, without prescription, is sadly an ill-conceived knee-jerk response to Britain’s spiralling epidemic of unplanned pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted disease amongst teenagers. It is also not evidence-based.

Third, the emergency contraceptive levonelle is already available free from Brook centres, some pharmacies , most sexual health clinics, most NHS walk-in centres,  most GP surgeries and some hospital accident and emergency (A&E) departments. For pharmacies it is a free market. Boots’ own  price tag was based on the cost of the medicine and the regulated mandatory consultation with the pharmacist. It is surely only fair that as a retail pharmacy they don’t compromise or undervalue this professional service.

It is regrettable that Boots has capitulated in the face of political pressure and failed to support its chief UK pharmacist in his legitimate concerns over incentivising the inappropriate use of emergency contraception. It is settled science that making so-called emergency contraception more easily available does not reduce pregnancy rates in a population and actually raises rates of sexually transmitted diseases. 

By appeasing this cartel of radical feminist MPs Boots is encouraging more reckless sexual behaviour and thereby exposing young people to an increased risk of sexually transmitted infections. They are also encouraging MPs and sections of the media to force changes in medical practice through bullying, name calling and blackmail rather than sound evidenced-based argument. The same campaign is going to target Lloyd’s Pharmacy next. This is bad medicine, bad leadership and bad public policy.

But perhaps the most frightening aspect of this whole episode is the deafening silence of other sitting MPs at Westminster who by their failure to speak out have signalled complicity with both process and practice.

The best way to counter the epidemic of unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease is to promote real behaviour change. The government would be well advised to enter into dialogue with leaders of communities in Britain where rates of sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancy are low, especially Christian faith communities, to learn about what actually works.

Church-based programmes such as Love for Life (Northern Ireland), Love2last (Sheffield), Challenge Team, Romance Academy or Lovewise (Newcastle) are getting great results and have much wisdom to pass on.

Doctors debate the complete decriminalisation of abortion at BMA ARM

Doctors could back the complete decriminalisation of abortion in Britain next week.

On Tuesday 27 June the British Medical Association annual representative meeting in Bournemouth will vote on a motion seeking to end all legal restrictions on abortion.

Currently, abortion remains illegal in Britain under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. Under this law both mothers attempting to abort on their own, or any other person (including doctors) seeking to help them, are potentially liable to life imprisonment.

But under the Abortion Act 1967 doctors can authorise abortion on several grounds relating to the health of mother or baby. Although the Abortion Act was intended to be restrictive, allowing abortion only in strictly limited circumstances, its provisions are very liberally interpreted leading to the situation where one in every five pregnancies ends in abortion. 

There have been over eight million abortions in Britain since the abortion act came into being 50 years ago this year.  Department of Health figures for England and Wales released earlier this month show that there were 190,406 abortions in 2016 and that 98% of these were carried out on mental health grounds.

So in practice, although abortion is still technically illegal, the law is widely flouted and we have a situation tantamount to abortion on demand.

Now some doctors are seeking to decriminalise abortion completely.

The six part motion (motion 50), from the BMA agenda committee, is to be proposed by the BMA’s City and Hackney Division. It reads as follows:

That this meeting:

i) supports the principles set out in part three of the February 2017 BMA discussion paper on decriminalisation of abortion;

ii) believes that abortion should be decriminalised in respect of health professionals administering abortions within the context of their clinical practice;

iii) believes that abortion should be decriminalised in respect of women procuring and administering the means of their own abortion;

iv) believes that decriminalisation should apply only up to viability in respect of health professionals;

v) believes that decriminalisation should apply only up to viability in respect of women procuring and administering the means of their own abortion;

vi) believes that abortion should be regulated in the same way as other medical treatments.

It is likely that each part will be considered separately by the 500 BMA delegates with each section receiving a majority vote becoming official BMA policy.

The votes will follow an hour long presentation of a 52-page discussion paper on abortion decriminalisation which the BMA claims is ‘neutral’.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), the country’s leading abortion provider, and the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) have campaigned heavily for a change in the law in recent months.

This culminated earlier this year in parliament voting by 172 votes 142 to support Diana Johnson’s radical Reproductive Health (Access to Terminations) Bill, which seeks to remove all legal restrictions on abortion (more here).

As this was a Ten Minute Rule Bill it will not become law but it is most likely that a very similar bill will be reintroduced following the Queen’s Speech later this month, either in the House of Lords or House of Commons.

In theory, Johnson’s bill would have made the 1967 Abortion Act defunct by scrapping section 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act, which make carrying out abortions, or supplying drugs or equipment for that purpose, illegal.

Johnson implied that the 1929 Infant Life (Preservation) Act, which makes it illegal to destroy a child ‘capable of being born alive’ (the act defines this as 28 weeks although many babies born as early as 23-24 weeks now survive), may also be scrapped under her plans. If so this would make abortion legal for any and every reason right up to term.

The BMA motion has been deliberately crafted to match the terms of Johnson’s bill as part of a wider campaign to change the law.

Johnson’s Bill is primarily backed by private abortion provider BPAS. The decriminalisation campaign specifically acknowledges that they are campaigning for a situation that would remove all gestational time limits for abortion. This position was affirmed by BPAS CEO, Ann Furedi, who said at the London launch of the campaign, ‘I want to be very, very clear and blunt... there should be no legal upper limit.’

If such a bill were to become law, and this would be far more likely with BMA backing, abortions could be carried out legally in any location, for any reason, potentially at any stage during pregnancy.

Without legislation on abortion, practices such as sex-selective abortions, mail-order abortions and school nurses handing out abortions pills on school premises would all be perfectly legal. The conscience clause would also fall, meaning that health professionals might be forced to carry out abortions or lose their licenses to practise.

Last year the Royal College of Midwives support for the BPAS’ abortion up-to-birth campaign caused widespread condemnation from midwives, the media and the general public against this extreme proposal. Over 1,000 midwives have now signed the open letter asking for RCM position to be revoked.

If the BMA were to pass motion 50 it would be signalling that abortion should be treated in the same way as surgical procedures like having one’s appendix or tonsils taken out – requiring consent only.

It would also put the doctors’ trade union at odds with its historical ethical code and with public opinion in Britain.

The Hippocratic Oath forbids abortion in all circumstances and the Declaration of Geneva requires that doctors show the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception.

But this new motion, if passed, would entrench doctors’ position as abortion’s greatest facilitators.

In the last few years, polls have consistently shown that a larger proportion of women want more, not fewer restrictions on abortion. A ComRes poll in May 2017 found that only 1% of women wanted to see the time limit for abortion extended above 24 weeks and only 1% of women wanted to see the time limit for abortion extended through to birth.

The same poll found that 70% of women wanted to see the abortion time limit reduced to 20 weeks or below and that 91% of women favour a total and explicit ban on sex-selective abortion. Clearly, women want the law to be stricter on the legality and regulation of abortion, not laxer.

The BMA must not bow to the will of this small and extreme pressure group. Motion 50 needs to be voted down. 

If you are a doctor or medical student, you can sign an open letter to the Chair of the ARM calling for the rejection of Motion 50. If not, you can still sign the Citizen Go petition.

Mumsnet needs to explain why it is promoting a 'charity' which supplies illegal abortion drugs

This story has now been run by the Daily Telegraph 

Mumsnet is one of the UK's largest websites for parents, offering brands the chance to influence women via high-profile sponsored discussions and other forms of interaction.

Mumsnet is currently raising money for charity. In its second annual Giving Week in partnership with JustGiving, it is ‘shining a light on five brilliant causes close to Mumsnetters' hearts’.

It promises to ‘matchfund’ any donations up to a total of £25,000.

One of these five charities is the Abortion Support Network(ASN) which the Mumsnet website describes as a ‘tiny charity helping women in Ireland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man access safe abortions’.

Mumsnet goes on to say that ASN aims to provide ‘practical information on arranging the least expensive abortion and travel, give grants to cover the £400-£2000 it costs to travel to England and pay for a termination, and provide accommodation in volunteer homes’.

What they don’t say on their website– but which is revealed on their justgiving page – is that ASN also provides information about ‘how to order illegal but safe early abortion pills by post’ (see justgiving page  below - click to enlarge - and enlargement above).

Well at least it said that this morning when I looked (when there were 63 donations on the site).

By this evening (85 donations recorded) the words in question had been removed (see below - click to enlarge).

I then looked to see if they were on the ASN site (they weren’t) .

Now this raises some interesting questions. The original Mumsnet quote has all the appearances of being supplied by ASN. But clearly something happened today to make them decide to take it down. I wonder what that was.

Contrary to popular opinion abortion is still a criminal offence in Britain. All the Abortion Act 1967 did was to make abortion ‘lawful’ under certain limited circumstances. Two doctors must certify in good faith on a statutory form that one of these circumstances applies in a given case.

Any abortion which falls outside these parameters – such as the supply of abortion pills on the internet without two doctors’ signatures or an abortion not performed in licensed premises – is a criminal offence carrying a custodial sentence.

Under Section 58 of the Offences Against the Person Act (the language is archaic but the meaning clear) it is illegal for a someone to abort themselves or another person. Furthermore it carries a life sentence :

Every woman, being with child, who, with intent to procure her own miscarriage, shall unlawfully administer to herself any poison or other noxious thing, or shall unlawfully use any instrument or other means whatsoever with the like intent, and whosoever, with intent to procure the miscarriage of any woman, whether she be or be not with child, shall unlawfully administer to her or cause to be taken by her any poison or other noxious thing, or shall unlawfully use any instrument or other means whatsoever with the like intent, shall be guilty of felony, and being convicted thereof shall be liable to be kept in penal servitude for life

Section 59 applies to suppliers of abortion drugs or instruments:

Whosoever shall unlawfully supply or procure any poison or other noxious thing, or any instrument or thing whatsoever, knowing that the same is intended to be unlawfully used or employed with intent to procure the miscarriage of any woman, whether she be or be not with child, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof shall be liable to be kept in penal servitude

So women who procure illegal abortions, and suppliers who provide them with the means to do so, are both committing a criminal act punishable by imprisonment.

Now unlike the Abortion Act which does not apply in Northern Ireland, the Offences Against the Person Act applies in all parts of the United Kingdom.

So Mumsnet has been raising money for, and promoting, a ‘charity’ which it clearly believes supplies information about how to obtain illegal abortions.

Mumsnet is clearly aware of this as it has put the information on its own justgiving page. 

Now let me spell this out a bit more clearly.

Abortions carried out outside the bounds of the Abortion Act are criminal acts according to the Offences against the Person Act (section 58 and 59) and for both the woman and the supplier carry a custodial sentence.

If ASN is indeed giving advice about supplying illegal abortion drugs by post, as the Mumsnet just giving page reports, then the police must uphold the law by fully investigating and reporting their findings to the Crown Prosecution Service.

The Charity Commission should also carry out a full enquiry into ASN’s activity including to what degree its sponsoring organisations BPAS, Marie Stopes and the Pregnancy Advisory Service (the first two are also UK charities) are involved. Did they know about this and are they collaborating? (BPAS and Marie Stopes are both listed as creditors in ASN's 2013 accounts so a business relationship exists)

By actively promoting and supporting this activity Mumsnet itself is also potentially colluding in criminal activity. This is a serious matter for the police, the charity commission and the crown prosecution service.

Some questions the police and Charity Commission need to ask Mumsnet and ASN are as follows:

1. Does ASN (a registered charity) supply information on how to order illegal but safe early abortion pills by post?

2. If so were its sponsoring organisations BPAS, Marie Stopes and the Pregnancy Advisory Service aware of this and involved? If so how?

3. If not why did Mumsnet place this information about ASN on their justgiving page? Was Mumsnet misrepresenting ASN or just being careless in revealing facts which ASN (and possibly also BPAS and Marie Stopes) wished to keep secret?

Abortionists try to unsettle peaceful vigil

Britain’s abortion industry is under pressure and industry leader BPAS (British Pregnancy Advisory Service) has been particularly under the spotlight recently, and not just for their aggressive marketing tactics aimed at increasing their ‘market share’ of the shrinking health budget.

First there was pro-abortion MP Diane Abbott’s high profile resignation from a government committee on abortion counselling after she was unable to shape proceedings to her liking.

Then there was the revelation that 98% of abortions in Britain are technically illegal as a consequence of the RC Psych enquiry finding that continuing with an unplanned pregnancy does not constitute a greater risk to the mental health of pregnant women than abortion.

Next was the Daily Telegraph’s undercover investigation into abortions for sex selection carried out at some of the country’s best known ‘clinics’. BPAS itself just escaped a police enquiry when a centre manager was able to stop an abortion that was in the process of being authorised.

And more recently BPAS revealed that was interpreting the Abortion Act in a very liberal way by conflating ‘distress’ with ‘mental ill-health’.

The latest episode in this evolving drama has seen BPAS complaining about peaceful pickets outside their abortion facility in London’s Bedford Square. Today they are calling through their press office (aka the Guardian newspaper) on the support of the Department of Health in dealing with a ‘new era of anti-abortion protests'.

Apparently a group of people from the pro-life organisation ’40 Days for Life’ (more background from Caroline Farrow) has been holding vigils outside its front door.

BPAS alleges that the group is placing pressure on its ‘clients’ and photographing them arriving at and leaving.

However, ’40 Days for Life’ dispute these claims and say that the camera is used only to record when they themselves are being harassed by centre staff.

Robert Colquhoun, a spokesman, said:

‘40 Days for Life conducts a peaceful, prayerful and legal vigil in London. The central point of our vigil is to pray for an end to abortion and show that that is a love in community that can help a woman to choose life for her unborn child.

Since our campaign started in September 2010, we estimate that more than 30 women have chosen life for their unborn children as a result of our campaign through prayer and also through an offer of love, help and support during a difficult time.’

A statement on their website gives more background.

‘We have a statement of peace that sets the tone and ethos of our prayer vigil as a peaceful and prayerful event. Since our campaign started, we have received a very large number of insults and threats. At times, members of the vigil have filmed themselves in order to protect themselves from these threats. We do not encourage anybody to film members of the public during our campaign.

Since 40 days for life started in 2007, there have been 1,633 individual 40 days for life campaigns that have taken place in 422 cities worldwide. 5,045 lives have been spared from abortions during campaigns and 21 abortion facilities have shut down following local 40 Days for Life campaigns.’

There have been over seven million abortions in Britain since the Abortion Act 1967 was passed, now over 200,000 every year. Every abortion stops a human heart and ends a human life. And as I have argued before there is no one more innocent, more vulnerable and killed in greater numbers than the unborn child.

But abortion also damages women, and many women choose it simply because they feel they have no alternative or because they are being put under pressure by partners, friends or family members.

We know that when given information and support many will change their minds.

Some years ago I spoke to a young woman in just this situation who was on the conveyor belt to abortion but changed her mind after I sent her a letter offering support. She later thanked me for helping her avoid ‘making the worst decision of (her) life’ and two years later a card with a picture of the two year old boy who was the joy of her life. I have never forgotten it.

40 Days for Life have already saved over 5,000 lives from destruction worldwide and protected a similar number of women from a lifetime of guilt and regret.

It’s not surprising that they are getting some stick from the abortion industry for it, but I commend their courage, persistence and willingness to face opposition and criticism in order to do something of eternal value.

I’m reminded of legendary cricketer CT Studd who left a promising career to do missionary work in China in perilous times and said:

‘Some wish to live within the sound of Church or Chapel bell; I want to run a Rescue Shop within a yard of hell.’

Rescue those who are being taken away to death;
hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.
If you say, ‘Behold, we did not know this,’
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it,
and will he not repay man according to his work? (Proverbs 24:11,12)

Bpas’ interpretation of Abortion Act merits urgent parliamentary scrutiny

The ‘Voice for Choice’ Coalition, an assemblage of pro-abortion groups and activists, has today issued a quite extraordinary statement which can be accessed on the ‘Open Democracy’ website.

Titled ‘The Daily Telegraph is mistaken: We support doctors who provide abortion services’, it has been prompted by the Daily Telegraph’s recent investigation into sex selection abortions.

It comes shortly after a highly controversial article by two bioethicists arguing that there is no difference between abortion and ‘after birth abortion’ or infanticide.

Caroline Farrow of Catholic Voices has already published an effective and comprehensive line by line fisk but I wanted to pick on one point that deserves further investigation.

Two of the authors of the statement, Ann Furedi (pictured) and Patricia Lohr, are respectively Chief Executive and Medical Director of Bpas (British Pregnancy Advice Service), Britain’s largest abortion provider.

It is this that makes the article particularly striking because they reveal an extremely liberal interpretation of the current abortion law which I think merits the attention of parliament.

As I have noted previously, 98% of abortions in Britain are carried out on the legal grounds ‘that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the mental health of the pregnant woman’.

And yet a major review of the literature by the Royal College of Psychiatrists last year revealed that there is no evidence that the continuance of a pregnancy ever involves risk to the mental health of the mother that is ‘greater than if the pregnancy were terminated’.

This raises an interesting question. Are those doctors who authorise abortions on these mental health grounds aware of these facts or not? In other words, when they sign these forms, are they just ignorant of the facts or are they being deliberately disingenuous?

We learn the truth in today’s statement.

‘Today, most doctors and most people recognise that women themselves do know what is best for their own lives and do take responsible decisions. Hence, most doctors are willing to provide an abortion referral for a woman if she requests it because they understand that continuing an unwanted pregnancy is not good for women or their children, and will almost always cause a woman greater distress than having an abortion.’

So the Chief Executive and Medical Director of Bpas, the country’s largest abortion provider , equate ‘risk to the mental health of the mother’ with ‘causing the woman distress’.

No wonder they are willing to provide abortion for virtually everyone who requests it!

When abortion was legalised in 1967 by the Abortion Act it provided doctors with protection from conviction under the Offences Against the Person Act for abortions carried out under a strictly limited set of conditions. This was in recognition of the fact that abortion ended the life of a human being.

But now, after over seven million abortions, it is clear that the mental health clause in the Act is being used as a catch-all to provide abortions virtually on demand, for every woman who claims to be distressed abut the fact that she has an unwanted pregnancy. And yet ‘distress’ by any stretch of the imagination does not constitute mental illness.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said last week that to carry out abortions on women who were distressed their babies were the ‘wrong sex’ was both ‘morally repugnant’ and ‘illegal’.

Perhaps it is time that someone asked him about Bpas carrying out the legal status of abortions carried out on women ‘distressed’ about having an unwanted pregnancy for any other reason . Especially given that they receive many millions of pounds of public money each year for doing it.

Britain’s largest abortion provider’s interpretation of the Abortion Act merits urgent parliamentary scrutiny.

BPAS plan to sell morning-after pill to teenagers online this Christmas will lead to more sexually transmitted disease and no less unplanned pregnancy

A British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) campaign, launched today, encourages women to stockpile emergency contraceptive pills over the Christmas period.

According to the Daily Telegraph a poster for the scheme, featuring the word ‘sex’ in fairy lights, asks: ‘Getting “turned on” this Christmas?’ And a dedicated website for the service is titled, rather bawdily, santacomes.org.

Women wanting to obtain the morning after pill, Levonelle One Step, will have to register their details on the website. They will then be phoned by a nurse for a 15-minute consultation intended to weed out young teenagers and assess suitability before being posted the pills.

However, BPAS has admitted that under-age girls will almost certainly obtain pills through the scheme by lying to them. Some children ‘will not be completely honest about their age’, a spokesman said. Under-16s would usually need a prescription to prevent a possible pregnancy in this way.

Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, said last night that he would prefer the pills to be issued after a face-to-face consultation but stopped short of saying he would intervene.

Not suprisingly critics have reacted sharply.

Michaela Aston, spokesman for the pro-life charity, Life, said the new service made getting the pills as easy as ordering a pizza. She said: ‘There are absolutely no guarantees that under-age girls won’t be given this pill, as there are no checks on their age carried out by BPAS.’

Norman Wells, director of the Family Education Trust, said: ‘When the morning after pill was first approved for use in the UK, assurances were given that it would be used only in exceptional circumstances and would remain a prescription-only drug under the control of doctors. Not only is it now being marketed as a “just-in-case” drug and supplied free of charge, but BPAS’s telephone service will inevitably lead to underage girls lying about their age in order to access it.’

Josephine Quintavalle, founder of the Pro-life Alliance, said: ‘BPAS won’t have any idea about what is really going on with the caller. She could be having underage sex. She could sell it to a friend.’

The risk of underage girls accessing the morning after pill is of course a key objection to the scheme.

But there is a more fundamental reason why this scheme is dangerous: Morning-after pills don’t actually cut teen pregnancy rates and actually increase the incidence of sexually transmitted infections.

Research findings demonstrating this earlier this year (published in the Journal of Health Economics (full text) just last December and reported in the Daily Telegraph in January) were the final nails in the coffin of the Labour government’s teenage pregnancy strategy, dreamt up by the now defunct Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group (TPIAG) which was set up in 2000 to advise the government on how to cut teenage pregnancy.

Part of its strategy was to make morning-after pills free over the counter to teenagers.

The research, by professors Sourafel Girma and David Paton of Nottingham University, compared areas of England where the scheme was introduced with others that declined to provide the morning-after pill free from chemists.

The academics found that rates of pregnancy among girls under 16 remained the same, but that rates of sexually transmitted infections increased by 12%.

Britain has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Western Europe. In 2008, the latest year for which figures are available, more than 7,500 girls in England and Wales became pregnant. Nearly two thirds of these pregnancies ended in abortion.

Rates of sexually transmitted diseases are also rising. In 2009 there were 12,000 more cases than the previous year, when 470,701 cases were reported. The number of infections in 16-to 19 year-olds seen at genito-urinary medicine clinics rose from 46,856 in 2003 to 58,133 in 2007.

International research has consistently failed to find any evidence that emergency birth control schemes achieve a reduction in teenage conception and abortion rates. But now we have evidence showing that not only are such schemes failing to do any good, but they may in fact be doing harm.

The phenomenon whereby applying a prevention measure results in an increase in the very thing it is trying to prevent is known as ‘risk compensation’.

The term has been applied to the fact that the wearing of seatbelts does not decrease the level of some forms of road traffic injuries since drivers are thereby encouraged to drive more recklessly.

In the same way it has been argued that making condoms readily available actually increases rather than decreases rates of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections because condoms encourage teenagers to take more sexual risks in the false belief that they will not suffer harm.

Whilst condoms offer some protection against sexually transmitted infections the morning-after pill offers none.

They are the very last thing we need to foist on vulnerable drunken teenagers during the festive season and will simply encourage them to take more risks by giving them a false sense of security.

This latest BPAS strategy is underpinned by the dangerous assumption that there is no right or wrong in teenage sexual activity - just choice. This assumption has led to a values-free framework in which the rate of unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease amongst teenagers is the highest in Europe.

Its prime effect, apart from further inflating BPAS’s already inflated coffers with more taxpayers money, will be to lead to more reckless behaviour, more sexually transmitted disease and no decrease in unplanned pregnancy and abortion.

The best way to counter the epidemic of unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease is to promote real behaviour change through such programmes as Love for Life (Northern Ireland), Love2last (Sheffield), Challenge Team, Romance Academy or Lovewise (Newcastle). These are just the sorts of initiative that the government should be encouraging and their message of abstinence and caution is the one they should be giving.

This latest BPAS move is sadly yet another unfortunate, ill-conceived opportunistic knee-jerk response to Britain’s spiraling epidemic of unplanned pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted disease amongst teenagers and will only make matters worse. It is most unfortunate that the government is actually funding it through them.

Instead of pursuing these tired flawed ‘ambulance at the bottom of the cliff’ policies we should be focusing on evidence-based strategies aimed at bringing about real behaviour change.