Should the contraceptive pill be available without prescription? No

The United Kingdom is top of a league in western Europe—and a very undesirable first place it is, too. The league table is that for teenage pregnancies, with rates of teenage motherhood in the UK, at 15%, around twice those of Germany (8%), three times those of France (6%), and almost four times those of Sweden (4%).1 2

The implementation of a national teenage pregnancy strategy in 1999 has gone some way to reversing the rising trend of teenage pregnancies, but only by about 2% a year in the first five years after it was implemented.3 As with other lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, however, the UK still ranks far behind the United States, where 22% of women have a child before the age of 20.2

Nevertheless, action still needs to be taken …