Incredibly, and without any debate whatever, a new brand of the Morning-After-Pill, or ‘Emergency Birth Control’, has been made available in Irish pharmacies without prescription.

The ordinary, everyday contraceptive Pill is available only on prescription and cannot be given to minors without parental permission or consent. How this can be squared with making the MAP available without prescription and to minors is anyone’s guess.

Welcoming the decision to sell the new brand MAP (NorLevo) over the counter, Dr Catriona Henshin, Medical Director of the Irish Family Planning Association told RTE: “I think it’s going to reduce unplanned pregnancies, and I think that’s a good thing”.

She wasn’t asked to back up this claim and had she been, she would not have been able to do so because not one single peer reviewed study has ever shown that making the Morning-After-Pill more easily available has significantly reduced the incidence of abortion, or teenage or unwanted pregnancy.

For example, see this article by supporters of the Morning-After-Pill. They are forced by the evidence to admit that the MAP has not so far had the desired effect on the rate of unwanted pregnancy.

In fact, a new study by Professor David Paton and Sourafel Girma entitled ‘The impact of emergency birth control on teen pregnancy and STIs’ indicates that increased access to the Emergency Birth Control by teenagers in England has not reduced the teenage pregnancy rate but has increased the STI rates.

The teenage pregnancy rate among British under-16s is six times higher than in Ireland. Why, therefore, are we once again copying a strategy that has been tried, without success, in the UK? And again, why has no public debate been permitted?

PS. The makers of Norlevo say it can be given to any age group, but the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland has just issued guidelines telling pharmamists not to give it to minors under 16.