The Christian Medical Fellowship (CMF) has criticised the government's current sexual health strategy, warning that its current focus on condoms and morning-after pills will not reduce the rates of sexually transmitted diseases or unplanned pregnancies.
The comments follow the publication of new research by expert Professor Anna Glasier, director of the Lothian Primary Care NHS Trust in Edinburgh, who said that while emergency contraception had been heralded as the solution to rising abortion rates, it had failed to deliver.
Prof Glasier wrote in this week's British Medical Journal: "Despite the clear increase in the use of emergency contraception, abortion rates have not fallen in the UK."
In the past five years since the morning-after pill was made available over-the-counter, hundreds of thousands of women have used the £25 contraception - heralded by experts in the US as a key factor in falling abortion rates. But in the last five years, the number of abortions has also risen steadily from 186,300 in 2001 to 194,400 last year.
Prof Glasier argued that rather than heralding emergency contraception as a solution to rising abortion rates, the focus should be on getting people to take precautions before or during sex rather than afterwards.
"If you are looking for an intervention that will reduce abortion rates, emergency contraception may not be the solution and perhaps you should concentrate most on encouraging people to use contraception before or during sex, not after it," Glasier wrote.
Speaking to Christian Today, the general secretary of the CMF, Peter Saunders, said that Prof Glasier's findings demonstrated the "bankruptcy" of the government's sexual health strategy.
Rather than condoms or morning after pills, Saunders argued that what was really needed was a policy aimed at behaviour change and while he commended Prof Glasier's research, he said that it did not go far enough in its recommendations, stressing that "abstinence and being mutually faithful are far more effective".
The best way to reduce the number of abortions in the country, he said, was to "encourage young people to abstain from sexual intercourse outside marriage".
He further warned: "The reluctance of the government to give the abstinence message is undermining their attempts to reduce sexual health diseases and unplanned pregnancies."
Meanwhile, the pro-life Society for the Protection of Unborn Children supported the professor's stance on sex education. Anthony Ozimic, the charity's political secretary, said: "Evidence continues to grow that state-sponsored promotion of birth control is counter-productive in reducing abortions among teenagers.
"The government's strategy of promoting the morning-after pill is proving to be a disaster, especially for young people and above all for the embryonic unborn children who may be aborted by the pill.
"Promoting morning-after pills may also encourage risky sexual behaviour and appears to be fuelling the explosion in sexually transmitted infections among young people."
Another pro-life charity, Care, also came out in support of Prof Glasier's findings, saying in a statement: "Making the morning-after pill more readily available, particularly to children, will not solve this country's appalling abortion rate."
