Daily Mail

Labour MPs were livid when a Boots boss raised concerns about the morning after pill. LAURA PERRINS accuses them of caring more about sexual freedom than young girls’ health

- By Laura Perrins

SOCIeTy is quick to condemn on most health issues, from how much you eat or drink to your exercise regime and whether you are a smoker. But one subject is taboo — as Boots chief pharmacist Marc Donovan discovered to his cost last week.

Anyone, in any walk of life, who dares to venture an opinion on sexual behaviour — especially that of young women — will be howled down by the liberal hordes.

Donovan was pilloried after he explained why the High Street pharmacy would not be cutting the price of the morning-after pill Levonelle, which can prevent or delay ovulation for up to three days after sex, as some other chains and supermarke­ts have done in response to a campaign to make it more accessible.

It would remain at £28.25, he said on Friday, adding: ‘We would not want to be accused of incentivis­ing inappropri­ate use, and provoking complaints, by significan­tly reducing the price.’

By ‘inappropri­ate use’, Mr Donovan might have been referring to those girls and women who now rely on the ‘morningaft­er pill’ as contracept­ion, rather than longer-term alternativ­es, using it regularly. Or perhaps to those — men as well as women — for whom its easy availabili­ty might encourage promiscuou­s sex.

Such a statement smacked of judgmental­ism and that, of course, cannot be tolerated in liberal Britain. The response of Labour MPs such as Jess Phillips, Stella Creasy — and 35 Westminste­r colleagues who signed a letter to Boots demanding a change of course — plus the abortion provider British Pregnancy Advisory Service [BPAS], was predictabl­y outraged.

They called on women to boycott Boots stores, whipping up emotions on social media.The company has now climbed down, issuing a profuse apology.

‘We are truly sorry,’ it grovelled, ‘that our poor choice of words in describing our position on emergency Hormonal Contracept­ion has caused offence and misunderst­anding, and we sincerely apologise.’

The speed of the about-face reveals just how scared big business is of social media activism.

It would be naive to suppose that Boots made its stand entirely from deeply held moral principles — one eye was, no doubt, on the profit margin. But if a leading figure in national healthcare — the chief pharmacist of the country’s biggest outlet for over- thecounter drugs — cannot speak out safely, without fear of the Twitter mob, then this debate has been shut down for everyone.

Any moral objection or safety considerat­ions over the morningaft­er pill have been silenced.

YeT there is much to concern us about pills such as Levonelle. evidence shows its ready availabili­ty encourages more casual sex and is linked to the recent increase in the number of people contractin­g sexually transmitte­d diseases [STDs].

Gonorrhea is spreading so fast that some strains appear resistant to antibiotic­s, while chlamydia can cause female infertilit­y.

The morning-after pill works by delivering a very high dose of hormones to the reproducti­ve system. The pill can only be used once per menstrual cycle, but if taken within 24 hours of unprotecte­d sexual intercours­e, it will cut the risk of an unwanted pregnancy by 95 per cent.

even up to three days after sex, it is still powerfully effective. This is no mere lozenge or headache tablet. It’s a hormone tsunami.

Olga van den Akker, professor of health psychology at Middlesex University, London, calls it ‘playing Russian roulette with the chances of motherhood’ because of our ignorance about the potential long-term effects, especially in those who rely on it regularly. And it becoming a routine method of contracept­ion even for girls well below the legal age of consent.

We have no idea what harm this drug does to adolescent female bodies, and we will never find out as long as even the mildest voices of concern are steam-rollered by the mob.

Figures out this month show in the Dundee district of NHS Tayside, a dozen 14-year- olds have been prescribed morningaft­er drugs in the past year alone. Twice in recent years the pill has been given to girls of just 12.

The region’s Scottish Conservati­ve MSP, Bill Bowman, fears the statistics point to widespread underage sexual activity, perhaps among girls as young as ten or 11.

STDs and the long-term effects of high-dose hormonal drugs are a serious health concern, and it is wrong that young people are placed at greater risk because of the twisted moral outlook of the campaigner­s for sexual freedom.

BPAS leader, Ann Furedi, a former Communist revolution­ary, has repeatedly challenged the notion of abortion as a last resort, and wants us to see it as a routine method of birth control. Furedi launched a High Court appeal in 2013 to allow women to have abortions at home by taking a pill.

The cost to health, both physical and psychologi­cal, of such measures is unknowable, but has been largely dismissed in the interests of sexual freedom.

This latest interventi­on by the BPAS comes just weeks after Mail investigat­ions revealed that the stringent provisions of the 1967 Abortion Act are routinely ignored by abortion providers.

Government health policy should serve people’s health, not the politicall­y correct agenda of self-appointed sex campaigner­s.

As the mother of a seven-yearold girl, I’m conscious of how much sexual content is paraded in front of children — the ITV2 show Love Island contained graphic footage of single people having sex, in the hope of winning a £50,000 prize.

The finale aired on Monday at 9pm, hardly late for most children of ten or more, during school holidays.

Who sponsors Love Island? Superdrug, one of Boots’ biggest rivals, which has already cut the cost of a (non-branded) form of the morning-after pill to £13.49.

A Superdrug spokesman says: ‘ Our partnershi­p with Love Island will allow us to showcase our own-brand holiday products in prime-time TV slots.’

What ‘holiday products’? Just Factor 50 suncream, or contracept­ion too? With thousands of young women about to jet off for their summer fun, many intent on recreating the raunch of Love Island, there will be a demand for convention­al birth control and the morning-after pill.

Use of emergency contracept­ion is fast becoming a routine accessory to sex. In America a decade ago, one in ten teen girls reported using it. That statistic has doubled, to one-in-five, and Britain is unlikely to be far behind. That’s just the young women who admit it.

A big worry is how this drug can be legally provided to any adolescent girl without parental consent or knowledge. Many will be too ashamed or frightened to tell their mothers what is going on — and the chemists and doctors are not allowed to breathe a word.

ANYONE who does not see this puts some girls in danger is wilfully blind. The abuse of minors in Rochdale and Rotherham was partly hidden because the victims were encouraged to get the morning-after pill by the men who systematic­ally raped them. No one was any the wiser.

It concerns me, too, that one more line of defence has now been torn down, for girls who don’t want to ‘go all the way’ but are scared to refuse their boyfriends.

Once, if a girl wasn’t on the Pill, she might find it easier to say ‘no’. That’s no help when a bullying or over- amorous boy can plead there’s always the morning-after pill. So every parent should be worried. We have to ignore the shrill shouts of the campaigner­s who ignore all the STD risks and moral dangers in their desire to ensure sexual freedom for all.

Because to let ourselves be cowed and silenced is to betray the health of the next generation.

LAURA PERRINS is co-editor of The Conservati­ve Woman website.

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