Outraged of Amsterdam

Along with the blindingly white legs of Doncaster womenfolk, one of the more depressing sights from my seat in Cafe Nero was the large number of young women -- okay, girls -- pushing strollers with babies. Why in this day and age does any girl still at school have a baby? It's terrifying: they're too young to get married, buy alcohol, support themselves financially or drive a car (and apparently too stupid to figure out how contraception works) and yet they're allowed to have children! Given that the legal age to have sex in the UK is 16, the CPS should start prosecuting those pregnant before this age and their partners -- and start locking them up. Alternatively, make sex compulsory at school. Yep, sex, not sex education. Think about it: Playing a sport is generally quite enjoyable unless it's compulsory. Scheduling obligatory sex for 2 till 3 every Thursday afternoon for 5 years should put off even the dimmest of teenagers until they're mature enough to figure out how to use a condom.

The Daily Mail is a filthy rag, but it's always entertaining to read it chez PJ's mother on our infrequent visits. The bile it generates is fabulous, giving the spleen a good workout. And while we were there, it published an article decrying easy access to RU486, the so-called abortion pill. One key story was of a teenager who'd been prescribed the pill after getting pregnant at the age of 14 on the advice of school healthworkers, who hadn't told her parents; the girl subsequently regretted her abortion and rapidly got pregnant again and had the baby aged 15. The Daily Mail was outraged at the behavior of the health workers and the ease with which this girl was given the pill; they should have been congratulating them!! You can imagine the knots that the Mail writers got into when writing the story, though: gym-slip mothers who sponge of the state are bad, yet (implicitly) lefty social workers are also bad; lax parents who let their kids have sex are bad, but they should also be told when their kids have screwed up.

So, compulsory sex for teenagers. Or prison sentences for those breaking the law. And please don't tell me about your friend who had a child at 14 and went on to become a professor of literature or CEO; one swallow doesn't make a summer. And prejudiced ranting is much more fun than reasoned debate -- as the Daily Mail would surely agree.