Child Brides - Tradition or State Sanctioned Rape?

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Originally Posted by Rufusboi

Its interesting though that the UK has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Europe [although still much lower than the US). What are some of the theories for this? Is abortion/contraception covered by the NHS?

Rufus

What's going on now isn't so much a battle against teenage pregnancy - I rather think that the powers that be have given up on that one - but one against sexually transmitted diseases, especially chlamydia, with the condom being touted as the weapon of choice. Magazines, TV, radio, the ads are literally all over the place and I know from the conversations I had with my 18-year-old son that they are having an impact. I would imagine that in the old days, boys his age were afraid of getting a girl pregnant and it was that fear that motivated them to wear condoms. Now, on the other hand, it seems to be the fear of 'catching something' that motivates them to - as our beloved (not) Jeremy Kyle (the UK version of Jerry Springer) puts it so eloquently - ''put something on the end of it,'' which they're able to do fairly easily thanks to the fact that any male under the of 25 can go to his local sexual health clinic and apply for a card, the presenting of which entitles him to walk into any local pharmacy and request as many condoms as he requires. (I said ''any male'' but I'm not sure if there's a lower age limit - I'll have to check it out. Same re. legislation concerning abortion.)

What about in the States, anything similar there?

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