UK : East : 25 abortions a week in Suffolk

[General Lighting]

I've always been a total supporter of a womans right to choose, but this IMO shows a worrying problem with the quality of sex education/service availability in the region

I though this country was liberated and we had more sex education and access to contraception than ever before, are people (particularly blokes) just not bothering to take precautions?

In no way am I anti-abortion (and there are some dogmatic idiots in some campaign groups adding to the problems) but its worrying this last resort seems to be increasingly used - if you think of it as walking into a NHS maternity ward but seeing just empty and bare - no babies in the cots, no smiling mums and dads, just silence - it brings it home as to how much of a problem this seems to be becoming...



20 June 2008

MORE than 25 abortions a week were performed in Suffolk last year, according to new figures.

The figures, released yesterday by the Department of Health, show there were 1,313 abortions performed in the Suffolk Primary Care Trust (PCT) area in 2007 - including 137 involving girls under 18.

This compared to 1,291 terminations in the twelve months before, when 119 were on girls under 18.


http://www.lowestoftjournal.co.uk/content/lowestoftjournal/news/story.aspx?brand=LOWOnline&category=NEWS&tBrand=lowonline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED20%20Jun%202008%2010%3A22%3A30%3A460

[Tank Girl]

I completely agree with the need for more open and honest sex ed (and also with the right to choose)

as the worrying thing is it's not just pregnancy you can get with out the use of barrier protection - STD's are also on the increase ....

[Brock the badger]

there was a report today that around 20 girls at a school in gloucestershire made a pact to get pregnant and have their babies at the same time. :yakk:

i dont believe this is a sex education issue but some weird psychology going on with networking sites

although unrelated to the above issue all those teen deaths in bridgend recently reported was linked to networking sites

[General Lighting]

there was a report today that around 20 girls at a school in gloucestershire made a pact to get pregnant and have their babies at the same time. :yakk:

i dont believe this is a sex education issue but some weird psychology going on with networking sites

although unrelated to the above issue all those teen deaths in bridgend recently reported was linked to networking sites

hmm - I'd treat many of these claims with scepticism.

This incident happened in Gloucester in the USA, not the one down the road from you ;)

and the girls involved were from poor families (its also one of the few US areas where single mothers get fairly good welfare support).

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gqy7Ul-khsyXZbncPC3S4FgOn4aw

(actually this place is rather like Yarmouth so none of this surprises me).

The real reasons for teenage pregnancies/abortions and suicides and even the youth violence are far harsher IMO - its simply that in a throwaway consumer society even life has become cheap and there are lots of surplus people even in Britain.

Blaming the internet is a red herring the media, governments and even some of the people use to hide the fact that the real "social network", i.e society itself - is slowly disintegrating.

many young people go for instant gratification and "short but exciting" lifes, at the same time even a short term co-dependent relationship is "better than nothing" for some - I suspect the abortions also happen because public sector professionals and teens own parents are no longer prepared to support more unwanted kids in a perilous society, and are encouraging the teens to have terminations rather than put more stress on familes and the welfare state...

as for suicides - for some when life gets boring or unacceptable on their terms they are prepared to "switch off" their own lives - same as with the abortions - either by actual suicide or increasingly risky behaviour... I know from personal experience as I once went through a stage of feeling like that myself (I'm completely the opposite now, not quite health/fitness freak but doing everything possible to stay alive and in good physical and mental shape!)

I've been researching a lot about the Welsh phenomenon and I don't think its any big online suicide pact - especially as many of the dead youths had no regular access to computers!

IMO these youths have simply given up on life, perhaps they are just bored with it having "done it all/seen it all" by their 20s and not seeing any future, its not the most prosperous area of the country..

last week two teenagers were talked off jumping from Orwell bridge here by cops and taken to St Clements (our local NHS mental hospital) and a few months ago about 3 or 4 youths went under the Norwich - London electric train...

[boothy]

sex education in schools is still a fucking joke man

same as drug education

[Brock the badger]

my apologies , i heard this on the radio going to work and heard gloucester stated without reference to the US. Just spotted it in the paper this morning

however, sex education has always been poor in the UK (according to many teacher friends) so i dont consider this to be only issue and i'm sure peer pressure has been exacerbated by internet chatrooms (my opinion only agreed).

The reference to internet chatrooms was an observation regarding the bridgend scenario but it was stated that many of those were linked together on an internet forum (and there were FAR too many incidents in the same area to make any conlcusive interpretation of the situation). There will always be many reasons underlying decisions that are many but you cant rule out something without due investigation.



hmm - I'd treat many of these claims with scepticism.

This incident happened in Gloucester in the USA, not the one down the road from you ;)

and the girls involved were from poor families (its also one of the few US areas where single mothers get fairly good welfare support).

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gqy7Ul-khsyXZbncPC3S4FgOn4aw

(actually this place is rather like Yarmouth so none of this surprises me).

The real reasons for teenage pregnancies/abortions and suicides and even the youth violence are far harsher IMO - its simply that in a throwaway consumer society even life has become cheap and there are lots of surplus people even in Britain.

Blaming the internet is a red herring the media, governments and even some of the people use to hide the fact that the real "social network", i.e society itself - is slowly disintegrating.

many young people go for instant gratification and "short but exciting" lifes, at the same time even a short term co-dependent relationship is "better than nothing" for some - I suspect the abortions also happen because public sector professionals and teens own parents are no longer prepared to support more unwanted kids in a perilous society, and are encouraging the teens to have terminations rather than put more stress on familes and the welfare state...

as for suicides - for some when life gets boring or unacceptable on their terms they are prepared to "switch off" their own lives - same as with the abortions - either by actual suicide or increasingly risky behaviour... I know from personal experience as I once went through a stage of feeling like that myself (I'm completely the opposite now, not quite health/fitness freak but doing everything possible to stay alive and in good physical and mental shape!)

I've been researching a lot about the Welsh phenomenon and I don't think its any big online suicide pact - especially as many of the dead youths had no regular access to computers!

IMO these youths have simply given up on life, perhaps they are just bored with it having "done it all/seen it all" by their 20s and not seeing any future, its not the most prosperous area of the country..

last week two teenagers were talked off jumping from Orwell bridge here by cops and taken to St Clements (our local NHS mental hospital) and a few months ago about 3 or 4 youths went under the Norwich - London electric train...

[General Lighting]

it definitely sounds from what boothy said that sex education has worsened, as I remember mine being at least informative although it concentrated too much on the biological and less on the emotional aspects.

And although there was obviously teenage sex, there were far fewer teen pregnancies and abortions in my formative years (1987-1990).

That said, I was in a council and high school district known for implementing "experimental methods" so maybe I was just lucky and what they did then (which was giving all the "leftie do gooders" surprising amount of free rein!) worked.

I wonder if this problem is the consequence of a conservative backlash shortly after I left high school? (around the time Major got in?)
(Reading is a "human guinea pig" site for many social experiments for both public and private sector)

The reference to internet chatrooms was an observation regarding the bridgend scenario but it was stated that many of those were linked together on an internet forum (and there were FAR too many incidents in the same area to make any conlcusive interpretation of the situation). There will always be many reasons underlying decisions that are many but you cant rule out something without due investigation.

It definitely needs to be investigated and in South Wales and there are a lot of "bored kids with broadband" (same as East Anglia) but I really do feel that the internet is being made a scapegoat for a much bigger problem.

This IMO is that many of those in power in England consider Wales to be a burden (particularly as she has been already raped for most of her natural resources) and with globalisation its no longer a source of cheap labour, so young Welsh people particularly without jobs are viewed as surplus / not worth spending public sector money on / causing too much of it to be spent already.

The English don't want to admit this as its essentially 21st century colonialism, and the Welsh are currently powerless to do anything about it due to market forces.

Even the attitude of the free party community to Wales has been exploitative - all the local venues were rinsed by SE England crews who had been run out of their own ends due to stupidity and now have left the locals with a virtual lockdown (a lot of welsh MPs are supporting the new anti-rave laws, and these are socialist MPs working across party boundaries with a Tory, thats how much of a backlash its caused :cry:)

given all this I'm hardly surprised young people of that country are in a pit of despair..

Its a big shame as its a beautiful country with a lot of really decent people... I probably sound like Neil Kinnock but I do have a soft spot for Wales and nearly wanted to move there once...

[Brock the badger]

Actually now thinking back wasn't the period below 87-90 the time when all the aids doomsday advertising came out? I remember being quite bothered about that and it certainly changed my attitude. Although STS's are gaining prominence it was nothing compared to that aids campaign.


And although there was obviously teenage sex, there were far fewer teen pregnancies and abortions in my formative years (1987-1990). ...



I lived in Cardiff for many years and went to most of my free parties in Wales the mid 90s. the best one was held at Mount Snowdon. Getting there in the dark we did not get the scale of the mountain until morning.. best backdrop ever and view of the party from half way up the mountain was quite special.. sadly no photos taken back then to share.



Even the attitude of the free party community to Wales has been exploitative - all the local venues were rinsed by SE England crews who had been run out of their own ends due to stupidity and now have left the locals with a virtual lockdown (a lot of welsh MPs are supporting the new anti-rave laws, and these are socialist MPs working across party boundaries with a Tory, thats how much of a backlash its caused :cry:)...

given all this I'm hardly surprised young people of that country are in a pit of despair..

Thankyou for appreciating Wales as a beautiful country as i still regularly go to pembrokeshire and get fed up with some english folks slagging us off


Its a big shame as its a beautiful country with a lot of really decent people... I probably sound like Neil Kinnock but I do have a soft spot for Wales and nearly wanted to move there once...