Another day, another headline, some more myth busting

Yesterday the news was littered with stories about 'girls as young as 13 getting contraceptives without prescriptions in pharmacists'.  I quickly want to put the record straight;

• most young people under the age of 16 don't have sex so the headline about girls as young as 13 is an overly sensationalist headline which perpetuates myths about the average age of sexual activity  
• those young people who are having sex at a very early age can be amongst the most vulnerable who they need and deserve excellent help and advice from a well trained professional whether that be a school nurse, a pharmacist, a community nurse or a doctor
• the pilot scheme run in South East London was as we understand it for people over the age of 16.  It was delivered by pharmacists who were trained and working within Patient Group Directions e.g. strict conditions approved for providing the contraception
• where pharmacists do provide the contraceptive pill, like any professional working with young people under 16 would need the appropriate skills and knowledge, including being able to use the Fraser Guidelines established over 25 years ago to ensure young people are consenting, safe from harm, mature enough to understand contraceptive treatment and to encourage them to talk to their parent, or another adult they trust.  They will not be handing pills out over the counter 'when they ask to get the pill with their Lucozade' as claimed 
• this is not going to be rolled out to every pharmacy in England - only pharmacies that have the right environment and staff with the right skills to provide appropriate support to protect young people and promote positive sexual health should even consider providing this service

And on a second lot of myths that underpinned the story;

• our teenage pregnancy rates are the lowest they have been for 40 years - they are not, at this stage, rising year on year
• there is no evidence that providing contraception, in whatever setting, encourages an increase in sexual activity at an earlier age.  None whatsoever.  All the evidence shows that good quality sex and relationships education at home and school, connected to visible and trusted sexual healths services delays the age of first sex and encourages contraception use when a young person chooses to have sex
• sex and relationships education is still not well established in schools, and much more needs to be done to provide young people with the facts and information, skills and confidence they need to be safe, enjoy and take active responsibility for their sexual and relationship choices, and seek help, advice and treatment from a range of sources when they need it. 

Won't it be fantastic when the headline reflects the reality that we see everyday at Brook that young people want to be, can be and are responsible about sex and sexual health, and that the most vulnerable young people need our care, support and attention, not our condemnation and finger wagging.  I await that day. One day soon.

It’s time we learned to trust

Last month I was at the lively, energetic Bloomsbury Pro-Choice Alliance counter protest to the 40 Days of Life vigil that was held outside the BPAS service in Bedford Square. It was fantastic to see hundreds of men and women out to defend and protect women’s reproductive rights. The pro-choice movement should be proud of the numbers and the positivity of those came out to show their support.

But the Bloomsbury event and the ongoing noise about sexual rights including gay equality makes me angry: Angry that women’s right to choose is under such attack yet again and angry at the lack of trust in young people, women and health and education professionals.

I shouldn’t really be surprised. This lack of trust in young people and their developing sexuality is perennial. The persistent attacks on abortion provision have always demonstrated a lack of faith in women’s ability to make their own reproductive choices. And public trust in professionals is constantly undermined by insidious reporting on the sexual health and education of children and young people.

This lack of trust results in a vocal, spiteful and noisy minority in despair about the immorality of youth. They lay the blame squarely at the feet of organisations like Brook, on sex and relationships education, the availability of contraception, the internet and what is now increasingly referred to as the “sexualisation” of young people. Their moral outrage drives their desire for a return to the illusionary halcyon days when young people waited until marriage for sex; when women didn’t have abortions because they weren’t legal; when a child of 7 didn’t need to know what a penis or vagina was because the wicked internet didn’t exist and neither of course did sexual abuse. They long for the days when pregnant women went into hiding and had their children taken away, whilst gay men and women had the decorum not to flaunt their love in public.

Whilst this small, ill-informed and vocal minority increasingly find their voice, it is critical we remember there is a broad consensus in support of fair and equal rights, good quality sex and relationships education and access to services, including abortion services. And despite this consensus there is still a risk that the trust in young people and the professionals who work with them will continue to be undermined. At Brook week in, week out we see thousands of young people who are making moral and responsible decisions about sex and relationships. Yes, they need a guiding hand, an empathic and well trained professional who can ensure they understand their rights, have the information they need, and the confidence, skills and abilities to make choices that are right for them.

Of course there are also some who are frightened or confused, who don’t know how their bodies work, or feel uncomfortable in their skins. We also see those who are exploited, hurt, those settling for sex or relationships that aren’t good enough. These young people need more from us and need help and support at home, at school and from other services.

Young people know they are not trusted by many and their trust in us can also be frail. We know that for young people to continue accessing services, they must trust they will not be judged, that they will be cared for, supported and respected and they will be treated in confidence. They also expect us to protect them from harm and take all necessary steps to do so - a responsibility I know professionals take very seriously

The trust young people have in Brook, and other agencies including the NHS must be protected and maintained at all costs, and that is why I am so angry at people who undermine it whether by myth making about sex and relationships education or by harassing people entering sexual health services – something we know young people can find intimidating or frightening.

It is not acceptable under any circumstances to stand outside an abortion clinic or a young people’s sexual health service, and harass people as they enter. I was recently told of a confident and assured young woman who had to cover her face with a coat, and have support from by a member of staff to get through the door because she was being prayed for loudly and –worse still – photographed. That is simply wrong.

My concern that we are seeing a subtle change with the vocal minority becoming more vociferous was reiterated at a parliamentary briefing yesterday morning. If, at the same time as we are seeing an increase in anti-abortion protests, sex and relationships education in schools becomes politicised and undermined; if GPs are not supported to provide what young people want in sexual healthcare, and specialist services for young people reduce because of funding cuts we will have some serious work to do to protect young people’s sexual health.

All of us want to stop that happening because we want young people and women to be safe. Our critical starting point then is one of trust – we must trust women to make their choices, trust parents, teachers and health professionals to do their jobs, and trust young people to be responsible about sex, sexuality and relationships.

The Wrong Question

Today, I'm giving my blog over to Julie Bentley, Chief Executive of FPA who has given a great deal of thought to the sex-selection debate from a feminist, pro-choice perspective.

The stories in the press over the past weeks, instigated by The Daily Telegraph undercover investigation into sex selective abortions, have left me, as a pro-choice feminist, struggling with the issue and frustrated by the public debate. I have felt personally conflicted on the matter and I don’t think I have been alone in that. This doesn’t make me a hypocrite or water down my pro-choice values. But it does mean I’m asking myself some really difficult questions.

The debate has been focused around the rights or wrongs, lawfulness or not of such abortions. The 1967 Abortion Act does not list all the circumstances in which an abortion is considered lawful; rather it requires that certain grounds for abortion are met. This includes ‘that the continuation of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy was terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family; or that the termination is necessary to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman, or that the continuation of the pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the pregnant woman, greater than if the pregnancy was terminated.’

There is a range of different factors that might mean these grounds were fulfilled, such as already having several children and feeling that economically another would not be possible to support – or for darker reasons, such as pregnancy resulting from rape.

The headlines have focused on the hysterical demonization of abortion professionals and the condemnation of the pursuit of ‘designer babies’, but I fear we are missing the point. Abortion is a red herring. We should be asking ourselves, why? Why are women requesting to abort female fetuses?

The reality is that through history and across cultures girls are not consistently valued equally. For generations women have found themselves pressurised into ‘producing a boy’. This ‘expectation’ can manifest itself in numerous ways and with varying degrees of seriousness. In the most serious cases, sex selective abortions can, regrettably, fall under the grounds of grave permanent injury to the mental health of a pregnant woman, even possibly the physical health of that woman.

My dilemma is this; if sex-selection abortion is rooted in the most unacceptable gender discrimination, how should a feminist who is pro-choice respond? If we accept sex-selection on the grounds that the woman’s wellbeing is at risk if the pregnancy continues, are we also indirectly colluding with unacceptable discrimination? And therefore, allowing it to go on unchallenged for generations to come.

Conversely if we know that women are facing an indescribable pressure not to bear a girl, are we further oppressing and isolating those women (or possibly putting their lives at risk) by not affording them access to safe, legal abortion?

I don’t think there are simple answers to dilemmas of this complexity and I’m not afraid to say I certainly don’t have them. But I do know that if a woman is pregnant and doesn’t feel confident that the future child will be fully supported, or that her physical or mental health would be at risk, they must have the choice not to continue with the pregnancy.

We must trust health professionals to do their job

Here is my article in the Huffington Post about young people's rights to contraceptive advice and treatment, and the importance of trusting professionals to do their job

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/simon-blake/underage-contraceptive-implant-schools_b_1271636.html?ref=uk-lifestyle

Education for Choice celebrates 20 years of excellence

Here I hand over my blog to Lisa Hallgarten to reflect on the past 20 years of work at Education for Choice....

This year Education For Choice (EFC) will celebrate its 20^th birthday, but we’ve got something else to celebrate as well. In January this year we became a project within Brook and are proud to now be part of Brook’s amazing work helping young people maintain and improve their sexual health and wellbeing.

EFC was set up to provide good quality education about abortion to young people in schools in England. For our first few years direct work with students in London schools was our main focus, but with the advent of the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy in 1999, we were able to plug into a national network of professionals who cared about young people’s sexual health too. We developed a training programme that has now been delivered to 4,000 professionals from Newcastle in the North East to Truro in the South West and about 65 towns and cities in between. As well as our training and schools work, we have produced resources for young people and professionals. We have been a source of reliable research and accurate information on abortion and young people for policy makers, media, and professionals as well as parents and young people.

In 2003 the Government’s Independent Advisory Group on HIV and Sexual Health flagged EFC up as a model of good practice in educating young people about abortion; and in 2010 we were delighted to be joint winners of the fpa’s Pamela Sheridan Award for good practice in Sex and Relationships Education, for our Talk About Choice schools programme. We were really chuffed to share the prize with Brook Wirral which delivers brilliant resources and workshops for young people, as well as being a fab team.

Much as prizes and public acknowledgement are nice, our biggest achievements are probably captured best by the lovely comments we get on our evaluation forms from young people and professionals alike; the repeat bookings we receive for our training; and the respect and affection with which EFC is regarded by people from lofty Whitehall to lowly youth centres.

In the past two years the EFC staff team has worked hard to build our profile and spread our message that all young people should be able to access evidence-based information; and that anyone experiencing unintended pregnancy should be able to expect impartial support with pregnancy decision-making. We have used Twitter (www.twitter.com/edforchoice) our blog (www.educationforchoice.blogspot.com) and every occasion possible to promote young people’s rights to this whoever they are and wherever they are.

Now we have to make sure that diminishing funds don’t diminish our work. After 20 years, there’s more to do than ever. We’ve learned that when it comes to sexual health and reproductive rights you need to keep winning the same arguments again and again. There’s no room for complacency. People are amazed to hear that organisations that deliberately disseminate misinformation about abortion, and prejudice about homosexuality are still routinely invited into schools to provide workshops and presentations for our young people. They’re shocked that those who oppose contraception and abortion are able to set up pregnancy advice centres to ‘counsel’ women and are even trying to get paid by the NHS for doing so.

So, what are we going to do about it?

Our immediate plans include:

• continued advocacy to tackle misinformation in schools and pregnancy advice centres;
• information and support for people to respond to the forthcoming Department of Health consultation on abortion counselling;
• continuing to provide information, resources and training to young people and professionals;
• enthusing Brook with our passion for young people’s right to informed choice on pregnancy and abortion, and sharing our knowledge and expertise with the staff teams to deliver workshops
• helping local areas address repeat abortion rates;
• tweeting, blogging, meeting, talking...

I don’t know about the next 20 years, but that’s the next 20 months sorted.

Lisa EFC@Brook

www.efc.org.uk

Contraception and under 16s

In the news today is coverage about giving contraception to under 16s.

Most young people under the age of 16 are not having sex, but Brook believes it’s vital that all young people – particularly those who are younger and may be more vulnerable – have a safe, confidential place to access advice, information, and support around sexual health and relationships.

You can read the full commentary piece on this from me published in the Telegraph today here.

Follow Brook on twitter @brookcharity; @besexpositive or follow me @simonablake

Sex Appeal: More sex please, we're British!

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