Teenage mothers receive guidance and support at a specialised centre in Leeds, in
northern England.
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Across the Channel
Last November, the French government announced
that school nurses would be authorised to hand out the morning-after pill to teenagers
“in situations of distress or extreme urgency.” The morning-after pill, available
in France over-the-counter since June 1999, can be taken up to 72 hours after sex
has taken place to prevent a pregnancy. There are an estimated 10,000 unwanted teenage
pregnancies in France each year, of which over half end with an abortion. Announcing
the measure, deputy education minister Ségolène Royal insisted that
teenagers given this emergency pill would then be put in touch with a family planning
centre for advice on a “responsible form of contraception.” The measure, welcomed
by unions of school nurses, has unleashed a legal battle involving Catholic and anti-abortion
groups. Although sex education has been part of school curricula since 1973, it has
been given greater importance since September 1999. Schools are expected to provide
30 to 40 hours of sex education to students in grades eight and nine. Meanwhile,
the government launched a much-welcomed information campaign on contraception in
January 2000, with TV and radio spots and the distribution of five million leaflets
on contraception to highschool students. It was the first contraception campaign
in 20 years, apart from an AIDS prevention campaign in 1992 that focused on condom
use.
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The government’s blueprint to
improve knowledge of sexual and reproductive health matters and reduce teenage pregnancy
has sparked a virulent debate
 With
65 conceptions per thousand women aged between 15 and 19 in 1998, England and Wales
has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Western Europe.1 This rate rose by four per
cent in the space of one year.
But while everyone agrees on the need for action, there is a wide spectrum of opinion
on how to deal with the problem. At the heart of the debate is whether information
or innocence is the best way of protecting Britain’s children from the problems associated
with teenage sex.
In the blue corner are the family values campaigners, led by churches, the Conservative
Party and the high-circulation Daily Mail newspaper. While in the red corner are
those who believe that the only way to tackle issues such as teenage pregnancy and
sexual health is to provide accurate non-judgmental information. The latter includes
most children’s charities, the liberal wing of the Labour Party and the department
of health. “The more information young people have, the less likelihood there is
that teenage girls will become pregnant,” says Anna Coote, director of the King’s
Fund, a health think-tank. “It doesn’t look like what we are doing at the moment
is working, particularly in secondary schools.”
Poverty
and social exclusion
Caught in the
crossfire between these two camps are Labour ministers wary of offending the right-wing
press and keen to hold together their “one-nation” coalition which swept them to
power in 1997 after 18 years in the wilderness. But much as it may like to, the government
cannot stay above the fray. Cutting the number of teenage pregnancies is vital if
it is to meet its targets of reducing child poverty and social exclusion.
The government has pledged to halve teenage pregnancy rates by 2010 and is expecting
to reduce by 2,000 the number of girls who become pregnant this year. In June 1999,
the Social Exclusion Unit (SEU), a government body which reports directly to Prime
Minister Tony Blair, produced a blueprint for tackling Britain’s alarmingly high
number of teenage pregnancies. Its conclusions were stark. “Too many teenagers are
being pressured into having sex rather than really choosing to, are not using contraception,
and are, as a result, ending up pregnant or with a sexually transmitted infection.”
According to Jill Francis of the National Children’s Bureau, “There are four main
reasons why girls in Britain become pregnant. We don’t give children enough information;
we give them mixed messages about sex and relationships; social deprivation means
girls are more likely to become pregnant; and girls whose mothers were teenage mums
are more likely to do the same.” Both teenage mothers and fathers come predominantly
from lower social classes. According to the Children’s Bureau, “teenage mothers are
less academically able than their childless contemporaries and more likely to leave
school at the earliest opportunity with few or no qualifications.”
One national study suggests that a quarter of teenage mothers were themselves born
to teenagers. The brutal fact is that teenage parenthood helps to ensure that those
at the bottom of the social pile stay there. Policies such as the New Deal for Lone
Parents (which gives young mothers information, training and other help to find work),
improved parenting advice and increased availability of childcare are all designed
to help young parents escape this trap. But they are costly. Ministers would prefer
prevention to cure.
So far however, they are running into stiff opposition. One of the SEU’s central
recommendations was to extend sex education in primary schools. But it did not take
long for Education Secretary David Blunkett to backtrack, saying that he did not
want children under ten to have their “age of innocence” taken away from them. While
in principle primary school students learn about how a baby is conceived and born,
the SEU report observed that thousands of ten- and eleven-year-olds receive no information
about periods, despite the fact that one in ten girls starts menstruating before
finishing primary school.
Nor can secondary schools rest on their laurels. “We’re not good at talking to young
people about sex. Lack of sex education is an important contributory factor in individuals
getting pregnant,” says Francis. Sex education is compulsory in secondary school,
but parents have the right to withdraw their children from lessons. The curriculum
chiefly focuses on the reproductive system and how the foetus develops in the uterus,
along with the physical and emotional changes that take place during adolescence.
Anything beyond this is discretionary, including contraception, safe sex and access
to local advice and treatment services.
Several studies into unplanned teenage pregnancies point to a lack of information
about contraceptive use and embarrassment about discussing contraception with a partner.
In February 2000, the University of Brighton conducted a survey of nearly 700 pupils
between 14 and 15 that revealed a deep-seated anger about sex education in their
schools. Girls felt that classes focused on the mechanics of sex and contraception
rather than on emotions. Boys claimed they were denied access to information judged
too explicit. The majority were “furious” because they felt legislation, such as
that which requires teachers to inform pupils’ parents if asked about contraception,
has stopped them from gaining access to information. Schools are expected to inform
parents when a pupil tells a teacher they are having sex or asks about contraception
in all but the “most exceptional circumstances”.
The topic of sex education is all the more sensitive at the moment as it has been
clubbed together with another row, which has centred on the government’s proposed
repeal of Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act, which bans the promotion of
homosexuality by local authorities. Passed under the Thatcher government, this clause
is judged discriminatory by the present Labour majority. Although not directly related
to the government’s drive to reduce teenage pregnancies, it has sparked heated debate.
The House of Lords (the upper house of parliament) has repeatedly rejected the government’s
push to repeal the clause. To break the deadlock, the government, in consultation
with church leaders, has come up with new guidelines on sex education in schools
that would become statutory—obliging all teachers to adopt them—if they are passed.
They would notably oblige teachers to teach about the importance of marriage and
stable relationships.
Morning-after
trials
Many teachers
in Britain feel that they are already being asked to single-handedly tackle society’s
ills and are reluctant to accept responsibility for reducing the rate of teenage
pregnancies as well. “Teenage pregnancy is a major social issue which education alone
cannot solve,” said a spokeswoman for the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.
“This is a cross-departmental issue, we need more joined-up thinking.” The ATL is
concerned that the new statutory guidelines would undermine teachers’ ability to
conduct sex education well. “If there are legal constraints, teachers will not have
the confidence to teach it well.”
Coote agrees that more is needed than just improving sex education. “There are a
number of factors at work. People don’t feel the services on offer are properly accessible
to them. Professionals often don’t speak their language, either literally or metaphorically.”
Meanwhile, as debate over the guidelines lingers on, the department of health has
approved trials in some parts of the country making the morning-after pill available
from pharmacies—including to schoolgirls as young as 14. Doctors usually prescribe
this pill. The initiative has sparked a media backlash and it is by no means certain
that it will be extended nation-wide. But the government holds firm to its line.
As the SEU report states, “preaching is rarely effective. Whether the government
likes it or not, young people decide what they’re going to do about sex and contraception.
Keeping them in the dark or preaching at them makes it less likely they’ll make the
right decision.”
1. The Office for National
Statistics also reports that 37.8 per cent of these conceptions led to an abortion.
For comparison’s sake, it should be noted that the conception rate in North America
stands at 83.6 per 1,000 women aged between 15 and 19, and at 101.7 in the Russian
Federation, according to data from the Alan Guttmacher Institute (www.agi-usa.org).
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