Teen has sex and abortion after reading magazine

Well, it *might* happen. According to this letter anyway...


Goodie bag has magazine with questionable contents

MY HUSBAND participated in the recent Safra Sheares Bridge Run. Participants of all ages took part in the event and they were given a free goodie bag.

In it was a magazine with an article entitled 'What to do if she is pregnant?'

It discusses the different options for a man who makes a girl pregnant. One of the options listed is to abort the baby.

Is it the policy of Safra to encourage irresponsible sex and encourage abortion even though it leads to, as the article acknowledges, "severe repercussions for her, both physical (she may become infertile) and mental (she could end up with depression from the trauma and guilt and have nightmares for the rest of her life')?

There could also be an enhanced risk of breast cancer following an abortion.

It surely cannot be Safra's policy to champion irresponsible sex and abortion.

The organising committee should have vetted the goodie bag's contents to ensure that they were acceptable. Safra's lapse is disappointing. I trust it will take steps to prevent this from happening again.

What happens if a young teenager were to take up one of the options suggested by the article?

We should be promoting wholesome values and strong families.

Also, we need to be sensitive to each other as this is a multi-racial, multi-religious society.

All of us have our own opinions about sex outside marriage and on abortion.

I would like a response from the organising committee.

Dr Tan Siew Pin


angry doc is once again, as he often is, confused.

So 'all of us have our own opinions about sex outside marriage and on abortion', but none of us should be allowed to mention abortion as 'one of the options' in an article on unwanted pregnancy, even when we highlight in that same article the physical and mental repercussions that may come with abortion, Dr Tan?

angry doc doesn't like abortions and he tries to have nothing to do with it at all. He is disgusted by the way some people repeatedly 'use' abortion as the *only* form of 'family-planning' they practise - that's really stupid and irresponsible.

But is omitting all mention of abortion (with the hope that eventually no one will choose it because no one will even know that such an option exists?) really a viable strategy?

Or should we openly discuss it as an option, but an option that comes with potentially severe repercussions, and one that should not be chosen hastily?

Maybe angry doc is truly confused, and Dr Tan isn't against the idea of abortion or the mention of abortion at all, but just the mention of abortion in a free magazine?

Perhaps we should just not put magazines in goodie bags in the future then. That ought to reduce the incidence of unwanted pregnancies.