CARNAL NATION

It is difficult to conceive how a £5.9 million ($9.5 million) government program to reduce the number of teen pregnancies among disadvantaged girls could result in doubling the number of girls conceiving, but it is obviously now the topic for some fertile discussion. Approximately 40,000 girls become pregnant in the United Kingdom, which represents by far the highest teen pregnancy rate in Western Europe. Based on a program model used in New York, the Young People's Development Programme (YPDP) ran in 27 parts of England between 2004 and 2007 and involved 2,371 teens at an average cost of £2,500 each ($4,000). The program offered sex education, free condoms, and drug and alcohol counseling to teens who had been identified as at risk for pregnancy, drug abuse, and/or dropping out of school.

The results of the program were published in the British Medical Journal as a study headed by Meg Wiggins of the Institute of Education, University of London, and Chris Bonell of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. At the end of the program, it was found that participants were significantly more likely to become pregnant than girls who did not participate in the program. Sixteen percent of the girls in YPDP became pregnant compared with 6 percent in a "control" group. Oops! "Young women in the intervention group also more commonly reported early heterosexual experience (58% v 33%) and expectation of teenage parenthood (34% v 24%)," the study said. The drug and alcohol counseling programs also made little or no difference in the behavior of the participants. Some experts have said that the reason for such a dramatic failure is that the program brought together at-risk promiscuous girls who might not otherwise have met each other. Peer pressure or oneupsmanship?

In one case from the failed program, Lucy Lanelly, now 19, became pregnant four times since the age of 12. At 12, she was impregnated after her first sexual encounter after not using contraception. She later obtained a three-month contraceptive jab but forgot to follow up with another; the result was another pregnancy. Her third followed an unprotected sexual encounter with a 15-year-old boy who insisted he was infertile (miracles happen!). Her fourth pregnancy happened after the condom failed. Ms. Lanelly admits now that she was too young to engage in sexual activity and regrets terminating the pregnancies. Sounds like the YPDP program was educational after all; however, experiential education and "on-the-job" training are perhaps not the best approaches for these subjects. Officials have discontinued the program.