By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
LONDON, UK, June 8,2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The UK Department for Children, Schools and Families has announced a new program that will give boys as young as 12 a condom “credit card”, or “C-card”, allowing them to receive free condoms at sport fields, clubs and barbershops.
The strategy was thought up by the Brook Advisory Service, a UK organization that promotes contraception to teenagers, as a way of providing more condoms to teenagers with the hope that it will help cut teenage pregnancies.
Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe, Times Online reports, and the government has failed in its pledge to halve rates of pregnancy in girls under the age of 18.
Boys will be able to obtain condoms by showing a plastic card which will be issued to them after they have received instruction in “safe sex” and how to use condoms according to new government guidelines, with boys who attend additional talks about sexually transmitted diseases getting a stamp on their card, which those running the scheme hope will become a status symbol.
Simon Blake, chief executive of Brook, told Times Online the C-card would make condom use “an everyday reality”.
However, critics of the scheme say it will simply encourage children to be sexually active from a younger age.
Josephine Quintavalle, founder of Comment on Reproductive Ethics (CORE), a Christian pro-life organization in the UK, warned: “We are just facilitating and encouraging sexuality without any deeper understanding of the emotional side of relationships.
“We used to talk about recreational sex among 18-year-olds – now it is 13-year-olds.”
Studies have repeatedly shown that “safe sex” education and easy access to condoms does not reduce teenage pregnancy rates or incidence of sexually transmitted disease.
Dr. Philip Ney, a retired professor of psychiatry with wide academic and clinical experience, wrote, “The more sex education, the more sexual activity. It is quite conclusive now, that the more sex education, the more sexual activity and all the problems that go with that.
“The introduction of sex education is well correlated with the increase in abortion, STDs and boy-girl interpersonal problems. Good education gives people the desire to try it out or learn more experientially. Paradoxically, in that respect, current forms of sex education are good education but have the wrong results.” See the complete text of Dr. Ney's commentary here. (https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/sep/08090405.html)
Read related LSN articles:
Safe Sex” Education not Working in the US
“Comprehensive” Sex Education is Ineffective: Abstinence Works, Major National Study Shows
Medical Journalist Says Reliance on Condoms Spreads HIV/AIDS
Durex Markets Condoms Designed for 13-16 Year Olds
Contact the Brook Advisory Service with your opinion:
421 Highgate Studios
53-79 Highgate Road
London NW5 1TL
Phone: 020 7284 6040
Fax: 020 7284 6050
Email: [email protected]