LIFE Lines

The first part of this post outlined two contrasting attitudes to teenage sexual behavior.

Read it here.

This post continues the analysis of these positions, and then moves on to focus in particular on whether the "damage limitation" approach really is the only “realistic” way forward.

We have now had a decade of massively increasing spending on teenage pregnancy policy, but little evidence of any significant decline in teenage pregnancy. There were 44,119 recorded pregnancies in under-18s in 1998. By 2008, that number had fallen by just over 6% to 41,325.

Yet another wizard wheeze from the fine brains at the Government's Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV (IAG): condom adverts on TV before the watershed.

You may recall that this time last year LIFE was urging supporters to lobby the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice, concerning its proposals to allow what they euphemistically call "post-conception services", i.e. abortion providers, to advertise on television. A (not exhaustive) list of reasons to be wary of the proposal can be found here.

Far, far too much ink has been spilt over the various allegations surrounding John Terry. However it was interesting to see the differences between the situation of the former England captain and an American sporting idol of comparable stature: Tim Tebow, American football quarterback and Heismann Trophy winner (apparently that's a big deal).

A leading Swiss condom manufacturer marketing extra small condoms aimed at 12-year-old boys in Switzerland, has said that marketing the product in the UK would be a ‘top priority’ given our high teenage pregnancy rate.

This is the blatant exploitation of children to make money. It’s mindboggling that family planning groups in Switzerland campaigned to have these condoms made.

An American woman named Angie Jackson has publicised her medical abortion on Twitter and YouTube.

LIFE spokeswoman Michaela Aston commented:

In the last 12 months several new studies have appeared in learned medical journals around the world confirming that induced abortion is a significant risk factor for breast cancer.

One, from Turkey, reported that abortion increases the risk of subsequent female breast cancer (now the commonest form of the disease) by 60 per cent.

Another, from the USA, put the figure at 40 per cent. More alarmingly, it reported that the breast cancer caused by abortion is particularly aggressive and treatment-resistant.

Once again the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) has refused to answer the following question put to it by LIFE; in view of the mounting evidence for the damage that induced abortion can do to women’s minds and bodies, does the College still believe that a doctor may carry out an abortion on the grounds that continuance of the pregnancy involved a risk to the mental of physical health of the woman greater than if the pregnancy were terminated? This is the grounds on which 95% of abortions are done.

Dominic Lawson, the former national newspaper editor, is an articulate and well-informed critic of assisted suicide and euthanasia. As the father of a daughter with Down's Syndrome, he is particularly aware of the danger posed to the disabled, elderly and vulnerable by any change to the law. In this brilliant article, he provides a devastating critique of the most recent pro-euthanasia advocacy campaign.