The ‘morning-after pill’ (MAP), more properly known as the emergency contraceptive pill, has been surrounded by controversy since it was first approved for use in the UK during the 1980s.
At that time, the then Department of Health and Social Security offered reassurances that it would be used only in exceptional circumstances, and that it would remain as a prescription-only drug under the control of doctors.
However, in a series of unparalleled moves, the MAP became available for general, rather than exceptional, use. It became available off-prescription; it was sold over-the-counter by pharmacists; and it was made available in schools to girls under the legal age of consent to sexual intercourse. Provision of the MAP in schools violates the government’s own guidelines on the provision of drugs within schools; it violates the guidelines given by the Law Lords in the ‘Gillick’ ruling; and it violates parents’ hard-won rights to know and approve the kind of sexual instruction and advice which their children are receiving in school.
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