There are times when I actually agree with the much-maligned Family First spokesman, Bob McCoskrie, but today isn’t one of them. Evidently, Bob thinks that a radio advert for the abortifascient (morning after) pill is sending the wrong message to young listeners because, in the advert, a chance encounter on a beach leads to an unplanned sexual liaison and the need for the emergency contraceptive.
““We shouldn’t be telling teenagers that having unprotected sex is okay. This [pill] deals with unwanted pregnancy, but there’s no mention of the danger of sexually transmitted infections.””
Quite rightly, Jackie Edmond , the Family Planning Association’s chief executive, points out that “it was difficult to communicate complex health messages in one short ad”. I have lots of problems with Family Planning’s sometimes very selective use of sexual health information, but I don’t have a problem with this. Any attempt at diluting the message “the morning after pill is free and easy to obtain” will just increase non-use (or late use) of the pill. This will have the effect of increasing our already high abortion rate.
Now, before people start a knee-jerk abortion debate, let me point out that, whatever you think of the pros and cons of abortion, it remains the most expensive, resource-consuming and dangerous form of contraception. This is an unarguable medical fact. It is therefore far more preferable that women use the morning after pill rather than need to seek an abortion. Of course, other forms of contraception such as condoms and the oral contraceptive would be more preferable still, but that information would certainly render the radio ad far less effective.
Bob is guilty of something we all do, narrowly focussing on the object of our ire and ignoring the big picture.
Kind of like the entire abortion debate, really.
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Jan 14 09 9:25 am
The thing that annoys me about their attitude is that isn’t necessarily the slutty girl having a one night stand that might want access to the ECP. A condom might have slipped off or broken, someone in monogamous relationship might have forgotten to take the pill, a rape victim and many, many other reasons. But yes better usage of contraception would definitely avoid the problem of a unwanted pregnancy later since half of woman who undergo abortions weren’t using it at the time.
Jan 14 09 5:23 pm
You and your ilk bang on about social engineering – whatever that is, but you seem to accept Bob Mckroskie’s version of social engineering, which borders on facism
Try actually reading the post, Millsy.