Birth Control

50 years ago, a pill that would have a massive impact on society became available to the general public on the NHS. The contraceptive pill changed attitudes towards women, relationships and family planning and thus was a major boost for women's rights in the UK with women being able to take control over when they had a child. This meant they could plan this around a career and would not have to sacrifice their job to start a family.

However, it is not women's rights that I am concerned with in this post, but the fact that the rate of teenage pregnancy in this country is still horrendously high. In 2009, 38.3 girls (aged between 15 and 17) in every 1000 became pregnant - 38,259 girls in total. Although, almost 50% of these were aborted, this still led to over 19,500 babies being born to teenage mothers.

There is of course a chance that some of these pregnancies were planned, but I imagine very few, and there is also a chance that many, or at least some, of these mothers will try very hard to bring up and their baby well and even succeed. However, a study carried out in the US found that babies born to teenage mothers are at risk of long-term problems in many major areas of life, including school failure, poverty, and physical or mental illness. There is also an increased chance of babies born to teenage mothers (and fathers) growing up and becoming pregnant in their teens as well, setting off a chain reaction.

Whilst trying not to generalise too much, there is a good chance that a lot of these families are going to cause a great strain on the resources of the government. As the study found that babies born to teenage mothers are often subject to school failure and poverty, it is reasonable to suggest that them and their potential families are going to be living off the state. I've mentioned it before, and I'm sure I'll mention it many times in the future, but the government in the UK has a massive budget deficit, and one of the biggest reasons for this is that there are too many people living off the state and not contributing to society.

This is where the contraceptive pill, celebrating its 50th anniversary, comes in. The pill which has already done so much for society, I think, could do so much more. The government is keen on cutting teen pregnancy in the UK, and the answer is: make the contraceptive pill even more available than it is now. It should be offered to every girl at age 16 (maybe even 15 although whether this might promote underage sex is a different matter), or maybe even provided regardless of whether it is wanted. This would remove any social stigma with taking the pill and I believe many more young girls would take it if they did not have to take the initiative to put themselves on the pill.

There is another possible benefit of encouraging more people to take the pill, unrelated to teenage pregnancies. It is believed that women who have taken the pill for between 10 to 15 years reduce their overall risk of cancer - a bonus for the government and the NHS as less cancer patients means less money spent there as well.

The first criticism that I envisage many people will have of this strategy is that it will promote unprotected sex even further as pregnancy is possibly a bigger deterrant for many people than STIs when it comes to sexual congress. Without the risk of pregnancy, condom use may be reduced. What I would say to that is that I would hope that people who already use condoms whenever they have sex would continue to do so and so the STI level should remain pretty constant.

As well as this, the most common long-term effect of STIs is infertility, and in more severe cases, death. So, my theory is that the type of people who do not use condoms will be unable to have kids, and thus this practice will die out with them. Natural selection at its best, and yet another bonus for any government that implements this strategy.