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UK Teenagers as Young as Fourteen Seek IVF from Shocked Doctors

SWINDON, July 5, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Britain has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the world. According to recent statistics, it also has the second highest rate in Europe of teenage sexual activity. In a new, and bizarre twist, it has come to light that some girls at least are becoming pregnant intentionally. Jo Heaton, a fertility doctor who runs a sexual health clinic for teenagers in Swindon, said she was stunned to have four fourteen year-old girls approach her asking for IVF treatments after "trying for years" to become pregnant.

Dr. Heaton said she was shocked but felt constrained to remain neutral. "I found it hard to know what position to take. It was tempting to say, 'You must be completely crazy. Why do you want a baby now?' However, we are not in a position to judge. We are there to help."

In the last thirty years, the popular wisdom has encouraged children at ever-earlier ages to be sexually active. Governments and educators are having increasing difficulty reconciling the new orthodoxy of free sex with the impulse to defend children from un-wed motherhood, sexually transmitted diseases, sexual predators, and moral corruption. The legal age of consent in the UK is 16 but police rarely seek prosecution if the children are of a similar age and both consent.

But the idea that a child could still connect sexual activity with motherhood is one that is not easily swallowed by the promoters of the free-sex agenda. Dr. Heaton regularly attends conferences that endorse promotion of artificial contraception and decry high rates of European teenage pregnancy. She says, "I have sometimes got up at conferences and said, 'But what about those children who want to get pregnant?' and there has been a deathly silence. It's something people don't really want to admit to." She recommends that the system become more flexible to allow teenage mothers to "dip into and out of" the education system.

Dr Heaton speculated that the girls, who come from white working class backgrounds, feel they have little else to live for than to become mothers. She said, "The impression I got was that they had a low self-esteem and low aspirations. It was almost as if they felt there was nothing in life they could achieve except to get pregnant. Then they would have a baby they could love and who would, in turn, love them."

Further coverage in New Scotsman:
http://news.scotsman.com/health.cfm?id=769122004

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