Study Finds ‘Family Planning’ Encourages Sex

THE HERALD, March 5 — Those who promote chastity among adolescents have been saying it all along, but now a British study has confirmed the fact that when you try to reduce teen pregnancies by providing contraceptives, you encourage sexual activity.

Family planning services have had no impact on pregnancy or abortion rates in girls under 16 and may even increase sexual activity, according to the Glasgow, Scotland, daily. A study published in the Journal of Health Economics found that girls in that age group who used “family planning services” were more likely to be sexually active than other teen-agers.

“Family planning seems to encourage more people to have sex which, teamed with a high contraceptive failure rate, can cancel out any gain,” said David Paton of Nottingham University, who led the 14-year, Britain-wide study. His work showed that pregnancy rates fell when access to family planning was temporarily restricted under a 1984 court ruling.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland, Peter Kearney, said society ought to suggest that teen-agers should not have casual sexual relationships, and that the government, which freely “moralizes” about alcohol and tobacco use, should not be afraid to moralize about sexuality as well.

Philippine Senators Push Ban on Death Penalty

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, March 13 — Fifteen members of the Philippine senate filed a bill calling for abolition of capital punishment, and the country's top prelate voiced his support for the measure.

Said Cardinal Jaime Sin of Manila, “I am very happy to join our senators in this humanitarian step for the sake of our men and women on death row.” The cardinal said the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime.

After a 23-year moratorium on capital punishment was lifted in 1999, the country executed seven convicts by lethal injection. But in 2000, amid appeals from the Church, then-President Joseph Estrada froze executions.

Scottish Parents Worry About Losing Catholic Schools

THE GUARDIAN, March 13 — Though the Catholic archbishop of Edinburgh and 59% of Catholics in Scotland support changes in the school system that separates Catholic children from those of other faiths, a group of Catholic parents is protesting a plan to allow mixing at a new school, the London daily reported.

In Dalkeith, outside Edinburgh, there are plans to replace two rundown high schools, one Catholic, the other nondenominational. They would be rebuilt side by side, each retaining its identity but sharing some facilities, such as a cafeteria and assembly hall. Catholic and non-Catholic students will be able to mix at school for the first time.

The head of a group of 300 parents argues that the plan is part of an agenda to “get rid of Catholic schools by diluting what they are.” In addition, the group is concerned about the way the nondenominational school promotes knowledge of contraception.