GIRLS as young as 13 have been given controversial contraceptive implants that can make them infertile for up to three years.
Figures obtained by Scotland on Sunday reveal that at least 100 under 16-year-olds have been fitted with the matchstick sized hormone implants at NHS family planning clinics in the past year.
The implants have sparked concerns about the long-term health implications for adolescents. Campaigners also fear they could encourage casual underage sex, increasing the risk of sexually transmitted diseases.
Doctors admit the long-term side-effects of the implants, known as Implanon, are still largely unknown, and teenagers could be especially vulnerable as their bodies are still maturing. But health officials claim GPs will have given hundreds more youngsters the long-acting contraceptive, which is placed under the skin on the woman’s arm and left in place for three years.
Dr James McLay, a clinical pharmacologist at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary said: "Only a quarter of all contraception is dispensed by family planning clinics, which means the figures for GPs could be four or five times higher."
A spokesman for the Scottish Catholic Church said: "Society is failing its young if it thinks that contraceptive implants are progress. Indoctrinating young people into the ‘contraception culture’ is obviously counter-productive."
7 comments
How horrible, these poor young girls lied to and used! Subdermal implants can have so many awful side effects, not to mention deep-vein thrombosis (blood clots in major veins such as lungs and heart).
I suspect that the promoters of these contraceptives have a ‘world overpopulation’ mentality, too – after all, many many of these children well be infertile by adulthood due to cervical damage by the contraceptives (the hormones dry up the cervix and irreversibly ‘age’ it) and scarring from STDs.
What is next? Who gives these people the ability to do this. The parents of these girls?
How can you fight this thing? No amount of education will get through to these thick headed people. Self control is getting quite scarce.
How judgemental for these doctors to presume that girls will be become promiscuous; which, sadly, is what many will become if their parents raise them in our liberal-sex culture. Still, girls need to be educated about abstinence as much as possible.
I don’t understand how our society has moved from a feminism born out of justice for women (voting rights, property rights, access to education) to this! Young women must be “improved” with risky contraception because, evidentally, pregnancy is such a HORRIBLE liability when compared to disability or death.
I remember a female doctor talk about how contraceptives were developed. There were pills for both males and females. Some men experienced the shrinkage of testicles. The male contraceptive was abandoned. Some women in the study died. The dosage was adjusted. I can’t remember what the point of the talk was about, because my classmates and I were struck by the fact that testicles were more important than women’s lives.
But things haven’t changed, have they? The ones benefitting from this are not adolescent girls but their lovers who want consequence-free sex.
Why can’t the Church of Scotland just hand out condoms at their services. That will stop this outrage!
I remember a young married woman I employed as a housekeeper. She had Norplant, a now-banned contraceptive implant from a clinic in NY. Her husband told her their one child was enough.
One day, she fainted down a flight of stairs, nearly killing herself.
Just another unreported side-effect.