Thaindian News

London, Sep 11 (ANI): British girls as young as 13 can now get contraceptive pills from high street pharmacies without doctor’s prescription.

In order to reduce scoring underage pregnancy rates, the scheme has been introduced to give young girls greater access to contraception.

Under the trail scheme, which will begin in November, ten pharmacies will provide the Pill without the need for a doctor’s prescription, under the direction of the Isle of Wight Primary Care Trust.

Those who visit the chemist for the morning-after pill - the emergency contraceptive - will also be offered a month’s supply of the progesterone-only Pill.

But critics have pointed that this would rather encourage girls to become more promiscuous, effectively giving them a ‘licence’ to have more sex.

“At that age girls are too young to make up their minds about these sorts of issues. Parents should be involved,” the Daily Mail quoted Labour MP Jim Dobbin as saying.

“There are also dangers associated with the Pill and we don’t know what harm it can cause over the long-term. The Pill doesn’t protect against sexually transmitted infections at all,” he said.

Norman Wells, of the pressure group Family and Youth Concern said: “This scheme is giving girls as young as 13 a licence to engage in illegal sexual activity and denying them the protection that the law on the age of consent is intended to give.

“It will inevitably lead to boys putting even more pressure on girls to have sex. The PCT is being extremely naive if it imagines that making it easier for teenage girls to obtain the Pill will bring any public health benefit,” he added.

However, Kevin Noble of Isle of Wight PCT said: “We have all sorts of ideas on the Isle of Wight that can hopefully improve emergency care.

“I think it’s an improvement on services that are out there. We will use the progesterone-only pill, which is the safest type of contraception out there. I hope that other trusts will look at what we do here and will say we’ll do that too.” (ANI)