ENDEAVOUR FORUM NEWSLETTER No. 112, NOVEMBER 2003

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The increasingly high teenage pregnancy and abortion rates in Australia have had much media exposure in recent months. Debate at Government level concerning the possible introduction of unrestricted sale of M.A.P.’s and placement of condom vending machines in primary schools indicate  that solution-seeking for these problems has reached a desperate level. They may only add fuel to the fire. 

My own experience compels me to comment on this situation. I have to agree with the opinions   in some of the articles mentioned above  that education is required to redress this alarming situation.  But what kind of  education? 

I have had more than 11 years experience as a counsellor with Pregnancy Counselling Australia. This is a volunteer organization which has been serving the community since early 1980. It is focussed on women experiencing crisis relating to pregnancy. We take around 7000 calls per year. 

Our young people are surely our most treasured, personal and national assets. When I first began work with Pregnancy Counselling, it was rare indeed to take a call from a girl younger than 15. Now it is not uncommon to have 13 year old girls who are pregnant. On one occasion this year a 12 year old was in this tragic situation. These girls are just emerging from childhood when they are faced with making life and death choices. They are having to take responsibility for situations well beyond their level of maturity and understanding. This comes as a result of sexual activity which they are led to believe is in accord with the tacit approval of society. 

The sex education that a large proportion of our young people is receiving is clearly not  helping them live their lives successfully ~ in peace and happiness and good health. They are  receiving a dangerous message. We want our young people to be able to make truly free life  choices, and to do this they must have the hard truth given to them without the fuzzy soft edges. It  is indeed a grave misuse of leadership by parents, teachers, doctors and clergy to let our youth believe the absurd lie that sexual intercourse can be enjoyed as a recreational activity without physical and psychological repercussions. Pregnancy is always possible where there is sexual activity. This is not news. 

I am often amazed that parents are in shock and dismay to find a teenage daughter to be pregnant, when they are fully aware of and condoning her sexual freedom. It seems that  parents themselves have forgotten the connection between sex and pregnancy. They overlook the dangers of Sexually Transmitted Diseases which can affect a girl for life. 

Some of our youth have the view that sexual intercourse is a rite of passage into teenage years. They put their innocent faith in condoms, the Pill, the Morning After Pill. The truth is that condoms break or leak to allow fertilization of an egg in a fertile phase of a girl’s cycle. 

The Pill is not 100% effective in preventing pregnancy, and there are serious side effects. We are talking about one of the most powerful drugs in the pharmaceutical pharmacopeia, a drug that will rapidly render a fertile healthy girl sterile and unhealthy. The risks of this drug include stroke, increased risk of cervical, liver, lung and breast cancer, disturbances to blood-sugar metabolism, depression, emotional imbalance to name a few. It can function as an interceptor which means that conception can occur, but that implantation is rejected. This is early abortion. 

Our young women deserve to have all this knowledge and its terrible consequences spelt out to them. The Pill of course does not prevent S.T.D.’s. The Morning After Pill, Postinor-2, is marketed as emergency contraception, when in fact it is designed to be effective after conception. It is often an abortifacient. Short-term problems include nausea, fatigue, dizziness, ectopic pregnancy. Never have I seen this latter mentioned in any article presented by Family Planning personnel. Long-term effects are not well researched and remain  largely unknown. At the time the M.A.P. is taken it is not known whether or not there is a pregnancy. It is, of course, a massive drug dose. 

In my years as a Pregnancy Counsellor I have found that the M.A.P. has been handed out where the likelihood of pregnancy is very remote. A recent caller told me that she had just been given Postinor-2. I asked her when her period was expected. She replied to the effect that she  was due in one day’s time. Her fertility at this stage would have been zero. It seems that people prescribing this drug are negligent in taking the history of their patient. 

One of my clients came to our centre requiring a pregnancy test. She was a 14 year old, and seemed particularly frail and distressed. It appeared that she had taken the M.A.P. I asked her if her doctor had taken her history. He had asked her no questions, she said. I asked her if she was on any medication. She explained that she was not, as of recent weeks, as she found that she could manage her heart condition by restricting physical activity. She said she had a hole in her heart.

It is a gross irresponsibility to give the M.A.P. to our young. It compromises their health and happiness while masquerading as a solution. Our young need more than a cheap quick-fix.  Why has it become acceptable to introduce hormone medication, the Pill, to healthy girls? My experience is that girls welcome correct information. How they apply it is their choice, but the truth about the Pill must be given. It should not be corrupted or masked in any way. The risks are huge, and they must be told. 

A caller, age 16 years, had been taking the Pill for 2 years. Her mother and doctor decided that this would be good for her protection and sexual freedom. At this stage she was not sexually active. She knew nothing of the risks, but had felt depressed since taking the pill. She felt that sex for her was now an expectation and that she had no valid excuse to refrain. She saw sexual favours as a means of developing relationships. She found that in the ensuing relationships she felt abused and demeaned. She became pregnant. 

Abortion is often (now about 100,000 per year in Australia) seen as a quick-fix solution to teenage pregnancy. Pregnant girls in crisis are often pressured into taking this course. Sadly, the shadow cast over their lives can be far reaching. They are often deeply damaged. The psychological risks with abortion cannot be ignored. Post-abortion distress accounts for about one in four of our calls. 

Melbourne psychiatrist, Dr Eric Seal defined post-abortion syndrome as “a delayed or slow-developing, prolonged and sometimes chronic grief syndrome”; the cardinal features of this are denial and suppression. Abortion involves the loss of life. Grief follows loss. 

Some of the effects of abortion include depression, suicidal tendencies, loss of self-esteem, sexual dysfunction, guilt, chronic relationship problems, obsessive behaviour, alcohol and drug abuse, to name a few. 

A call came from a young lady who had an abortion. She could not continue her studies due to her grief and lack of concentration. Another young woman had experienced abortion 5 years earlier. She had chosen that path to enable her to pursue her rapid climb up the corporate ladder, and to preserve her relationship with her boyfriend who did not want the responsibility of a child. She found herself overtaken by depression, sleep disruption, nightmares, so that she was unable to continue her promising career and she had taken to alcohol abuse as an escape from her sadness. The relationship with the boyfriend was not sustainable, due in part, to her altered personality. This young lady was one of the many who emerge dysfunctional following an abortion.

Our young people deserve our best wisdom, truth and knowledge, hard as it may be. The Medical Journal of Australia recommended a review of sex education and called for better access to health services. In my view health services have already failed them by drugging them, deceiving them and dumbing them down. 

Sex education has not told them the simple facts of life! 

Sheila Wells,  mother of  three, is Coordinator of  Pregnancy Counselling Australia.

She  has tertiary qualifications in  education, music and  therapeutic massage.

Member Organisation, World Council for Life and Family

NGO in Special Consultative Status with ECOSOC of the UN