NICE?

The inappropriately acronymised National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended that all young women past the age of puberty be able to stock up on the morning after pill in advance of having unprotected sexual intercourse.  They assure us this is the only way to handle the UK’s soaringly high rates for teenage pregnancy and abortion. 

Now this is interesting.  The last time I looked, sexual intercourse below the age of consent (which remains16) was an offence of strict liability, meaning any and all sex with a minor is a crime.   Lack of knowledge of a partner’s age, even if provable, is no defence.  It’s still classed as rape.  So can someone please explain why NICE is not now being prosecuted for encouraging or assisting the commission of a crime? 

This isn’t just the operation of double standards.  It’s blatant disregard for the law, driven by an ideological agenda that appears intent on destroying family and all that has up to now protected our young.  Even worse, it’s putting their lives at risk.

Let me explain.

If we give young girls sack loads of after-the-event contraceptives, the clear and simple message is that we expect them to indulge in mindless, casual sex and, not only that, we will help ensure there are no inconvenient consequences.  Because, we say, we don’t want their lives to be ruined. 

Whatever is claimed, this is nothing more that State sanctioned promiscuity, and it has nothing to do with children’s rights or wellbeing, but all to do with the erosion of family. Inevitably this lunatic policy, separating sex from all idea of commitment, will weaken parental influence and control, which in turn can only add to the more general, and already evident, destabilisation of society.  But at an individual level too, it’s doing our kids no favours.  Increasingly, we know that they are finding it difficult to form long-term relationships that will stay the course.  Yet research indicates it is precisely this that grounds emotional stability and leads to happiness.   So is it really any wonder that mental illness and suicide rates amongst the young are at an all time high?   

And what of STIs, which doctors say are now so prevalent as to constitute an epidemic?  Easy access to post-coital contraception will only encourage unprotected sex – which will in turn help spread these unpleasant, and in some cases untreatable, diseases.  Current figures for Chlamydia have already given a whole new meaning to the term ‘togetherness’, and it’s not good.  But there you go – stock up on the wonder pill, have sex … and share that embarrassing genital itch, or worse, around your friends!

But there’s an even more worrying reason why this policy is a bad idea.  The morning after pill, with its cocktail of foetus destroying hormones and steroids, was never designed to be popped like so many smarties, and we simply have no idea what the dangers of such heavy usage might be.  Infertility, heart disease… cancer?  Without proper research we simply can’t know, and yet here we are, blithely encouraging girls to live like there’s no tomorrow. 

For some, that may be the reality.

So no, this proposed policy is not NICE.  It’s sheer madness, and we are failing both young and old alike if we allow the National Institute for Sexually Tarnishing the Young to continue these damaging, immoral, and insane strategies without calling them to account.