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- PARIS (AFP) - The "morning-after"
contraceptive pill has become available in French schools, freeing schoolgirls
from the fear of pregnancy after ill-considered sex, a decision that has
caused uproar among conservative Catholic groups.
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- Since last Thursday, high school nurses have been authorised
to hand out the pill, which works by preventing the fertilised ovum from
implanting itself in the wall of the womb, to young girls who fear they
might become pregnant.
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- The move was announced by Schools Minister Segolene Royal
at the end of last November, to howls of protest from Catholic organisations,
in a bid to cut back on a hike in adolescent pregnancies and abortions.
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- "There is a huge problem of distress amid adolescents
in France, notably regarding teen pregnancies, more than 10,000, of which
6,700 are ended by abortion. I want to react to this emergency," Royal
said at the time.
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- The pill, which was already freely available over the
counter at French chemists, has a 90 percent success rate as a contraceptive
when taken within 72 hours. It is often confused with the "abortion"
pill known as RU-486 or Mifegyne, used to terminate pregnancies up until
seven weeks after conception.
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- Highlighting the fact that the "morning-after"
pill was now available without a prescription, Royal said "I believe
it's reasonable to give school doctors and nurses responsibility."
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- It will be handed out in schools "in cases of distress
and extreme urgency," she added.
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- But she said that young girls would be advised to warn
their parents, whether they be minors or not. School nurses are sworn to
secrecy but will be asked nevertheless to put young girls in contact with
a family planning or hospital doctor.
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- State-funded secondary schools in France offer all-day
medical care to students, who are advised that no prior parental authorisation
is needed to consult school nurses and doctors.
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- A nurse working in a Paris high school of 3,000 students
said Friday that she could have used the drug, Norlevo, on four occasions
since term started in September.
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- Another, in charge of a college of 700 pupils in the
provinces, said she had already had two cases of unwanted pregnancies since
the start of the school year.
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- "In one case, we managed to take the girl to the
family planning centre where she was given a massive dose of hormones to
stop ovulation. The second girl had to have an abortion with all the accompanying
mental trauma," the nurse said.
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- Experts reckon around 15 percent of teenagers in first-sex
relationships fail to use contraception of any kind and that because of
AIDS-prevention education schemes, many youngsters over-estimate the efficiency
of condoms, which have a more than 17 percent failure rate.
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- On Friday the Association of Catholic Families expressed
concern about hand-outs of the morning-after pill, calling the move another
weakening of parental responsibility and saying that school nurses should
not be allowed to substitute for parents.
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- The Socialist government's recent legislation giving
gay couples added rights triggered an outcry across France, from church
leaders to conservative political groups.
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- Last November, the Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano
strongly condemned the French decision, calling it "a cruel hypocrisy."
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- French authorities had taken the shortest route to combatting
teenage pregnancy, but it was a route of contemptible morality, according
to an article by theologian Gino Concetti.
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- French authorities were using "illicit measures
to avoid abortion, but they do not encourage correct political information
on sexuality aimed at discouraging youngsters and adults committing acts
which finish in an atrocious way with a crime against life," he wrote.
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- Comment
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- From James Mortellaro <Jsmortell@aol.com 1-9-00
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- We agree with the decision to dispense "morning-After"
pills to schoolgirls, French or otherwise. We enthusiastically concur
with the decision of many municipalities in the United States, to dispense
condoms to our children, in spite of the fact that they are not yet mature
enough to do the nasty. And of course, we are happy to see more and more
laws culminating in the eventual banning of guns off the face of this sick
earth.
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- Who are "We?"
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- "We," are the black forces in your society.
We are the ones who prescribe fuel for the fire; the fire one which burns
in the bowel of all of men. It is the fire of lust, the burning of hatred,
the heat of obscenity, the flames from which, fan all that is represented
by what we call "evil" in our society.
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- Evil does not exist as an entity. Evil is merely a force.
We are the ones which give it life by succumbing to it's lure. "I
love ya baby, can I have some more?" "Milk blood, to keep from
running out" and finally, "The Needle and the Damage Done!"
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- The needle carries the juice, the juice carries the pleasure,
the pleasure carries the pain. In "giving in" to the fire within,
we give up control of our bodies and our minds. If you are among those
who perceive they have been abducted, then you understand control. Most
of us who have experienced such terror, understand that the only thing
which they have left is control of our mind. And that, only during those
times when "they" are not with us.
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- Many of us have given in to the fire within. We've relinquished
control of ourselves to the pleasure of the juice. Alcohol, drugs and
worse. There comes a time when we realize why we do what we do. Like
most who seek more pleasure than is healthy, we wish to escape from our
unpleasant realities. We end up discovering all too soon, that reality
is the end of pleasure and the beginning of a new pain, the pain of addiction.
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- Some of us who attempt escape, do so knowing what there
is to forget. There are many who escape and know not why. They can comprehend
only the need, not the reason for it. It is those, whom we hurt the most,
by giving them only a bandage for their wounds. But they know not what
the wound is. Where to apply the salve. We hurt them by giving them pills
and condoms because we do not destroy that which disturbs their young minds
and bodies. We do not even KNOW what it is. How then, may we cure the
disease? We cannot. We merely give the analgesic. Most of us learn. Many
too late. Some never learn. We are being destroyed from within and there
are those who are happy over this disaster, for they may gain greater control
over us.
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- In my neighborhood there was a man who constantly bothered
his family and friends with a seeming need communicate. He would get up
to your face and just keep talking. He had little to say. He just had
to speak, to someone. Anyone.
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- His family refused to listen. "Would you please
shut up! You're the biggest pain in the ass I've ever encountered. Get
the fu*k away, pop." He did. He went to the little shopping mall
where he tried desperately to speak with shop keepers, their patrons.
All he got was dirty looks and in a pleasant (at first) way, asked to leave.
But not at the local pub. He was welcome there. So he stayed. Longer
and longer.
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- His family was happy. They were rid of a pain in the
ass of the worst kind. Imagine, wanting to talk all the time. To communicate
what he was feeling, which was the worst kind of loneliness a man could
have; the loneliness of a man with a family who cared little for him,
his needs, his desires, his fears.
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- But after a long time, the man began coming home drunk.
Then drunker. His drinking was brought home with him. Then it was brought
to the streets, to the liquor stores and bars in the community. By now,
he was abandoned and asked to leave the home he bought and cared for, the
home in which he raised those who threw him out of it. His children.
They scorned him openly now, whereas before they scorned him only on those
occasions when he wanted to speak with them. Usually, during those times
he had little to say, at least by which to satisfy them. The old fart
was truly a pain in the ass. Now, they knew they were right about him.
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- So the man took to living on the streets, the same streets
where he was known before as a father and a husband, a man who earned a
living and shared the neighborhood. He was scorned again, only now it
was worse. Now they looked at him and turned away in disgust.
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- I saw him once, and gave him twenty bucks, which at the
time, I could ill afford. I asked him to maybe get cleaned up and get
a really good meal, a night in a flop house, maybe dry out. But he only
used it to buy much more alcohol. I figured I was doing him a favor.
I wasn't. I was doing me a favor. I was attempting to melt my own guilt
in to mush. You see, one day, a day I shall never forget, I saw that man
sober as a judge in my pharmacy. I had my own problems then and I was not
interested in his. He kept bugging me, wanting to talk to me. I turned
away, looking at the pharmacist, and shrugged, turning my eyes up at the
ceiling and walked away.
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- Now, I saw a man that I had helped get there. By giving
him a reason to continue his mad rush into the fire. Later, as time went
on, he had trouble walking because he was injured in a hit and run, had
broken his leg and it never healed correctly. It went one way and then
another, each way was not up and down. And my own pain grew, the one in
which I had born in my life of hidden abductions, a wife becoming ill with
Multiple Sclerosis, with medical bills up the kazoo thanks to insurance
companies holding out on us. I owed half a million dollars to doctors
and hospitals. I had one friend. He gave me his car. I had transportation.
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- I went to my family, the one I had lost contact with
while I was trying to become the big shot in the corporate world which
I was back then, before Rosie became ill. The family that never understood
anything about life or what I was doing. Oh, I loved them and they loved
me, but there was not even an attempt at communication. When I was up
to my eyeballs in debt, frustrated beyond belief, trying hard to escape
but never making it, carrying the burden of abduction, of watching my home
and all for which I worked burn in the fire within, my wife become more
and more ill, I finally went to them and in a catharsis of speaking, unloaded
it all.
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- Two people going two separate ways. One shunned by a
family who would not listen, one who shunned a family who wanted to listen.
One now long gone from this earth, one still here, successful and having
realized that going to the fire within has no meaning, no value. It's
the burning of the fire of another kind that cures, heals and quenches
the thirst which causes all the pain, and worse, all the pain from all
that pleasure. That fire is the fire of love.
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- That fire burns low these days. And even when it burn
brightly and strong, it is sometimes never seen. Why is that?
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- We agree. Give the condoms away. Give away the pills
and the drugs and the films which portray "reality." Give it
all away. Take away freedom and liberty and create a new world order.
Take away everything we hold dear, or used to, and make it go away. Give
us everything we want and nothing which we need. Then, we are truly dependent
on those who would have us enslaved.
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- Maybe the conspiracy is us?
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- Nah.
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- Jim Mortellaro
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