News

HULL, UK, February 14, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Dr. Mike Holmes of the Haxby Group GP Practice in the UK has suggested that pupils at Sir Henry Cooper School in Hull – 11 to 16-year-olds – would benefit from being offered advice on “sexual health and family planning” at an in-school clinic, and be given condoms and prescriptions for the contraceptive pill.

Holmes told a local newspaper that he believes young people would be much more likely to seek medical advice if it was “convenient for them.”

The school is located in a reportedly economically depressed area with “a high rate of teenage pregnancies and heart disease.”

Although admitting that giving condoms and contraceptives to children at school was “controversial,” he said the service would be the same as the kids could get “by visiting any surgery.”

“We would, for example, offer advice on sexual health and family planning, drugs and obesity, as well as carry out screenings and monitor patients’ height, weight and development,” Dr. Holmes said, adding, “We would prescribe contraception, but only after consultation with the school, governors and parents.”

Concern has been raised repeatedly over the ineffectiveness of sex-ed and contraception campaigns aimed at reducing teen pregnancies in the UK.

Just last week, Professor David Paton, chairman of Industrial Economics at Nottingham University Business School, told LifeSiteNews.com that it was “puzzling” that government policy makers are still pushing the morning-after pill (MAP) on young people, when it has done absolutely nothing to reduce teen pregnancies.

Paton told LSN that a lot of research has been done on the effects of widespread use of MAP and the results have been “remarkably consistent.”

He said, “Schools are doing this, perhaps without being aware that the evidence is that youngsters in their schools will get pregnant at an early age and it will increase sexually transmitted diseases.”

The same conclusions have been made by “all the papers in this area,” Paton said. “Everyone agrees it (MAP) does not have the effect of reducing teen pregnancy rates. Not a single paper found a reduction.”

These conclusions confirm research such as the survey conducted by the UK’s Family Education Trust in 2004 that revealed teenage pregnancy rates are highest in areas that have been most aggressive in promoting sex education. The report stated that explicit sex education and providing condoms to young girls simply encourages them to become sexually active.

A more recent study on making contraception more easily available to teens again found that such schemes do not reduce teen pregnancy rates, but rather lead to a rise in sexually transmitted diseases among teenagers.

In response to Dr. Holmes’ plan for condom distribution at Sir Henry Cooper School, Helena Spencer, a governor at the school, told The Telegraph that the plan was “very much in its infancy” and that the governors had not yet discussed the issue.

Contact information:

Sir Henry Cooper School
Headteacher: Mr David White
Thorpepark Road
Orchard Park Estate
Kingston Upon Hull, HU6 9ES
Phone: 01482 854687
Fax: 01482 809690

Hull City Council Education Authority
Guildhall, Hull, HU1 2AA
Tel: 01482 300 300
Fax: 01482 613 680
Concerns may be voiced via website here

Dr. Mike Holmes
Haxby Group Practice
Orchard Park Surgery
The Orchard Centre
210 Orchard Park Road
Orchard Park Estate
Hull, HU6 9BX
Tel : 01483 303957
Fax : 01482 303958
Email: [email protected]