There has been a lot of talk over the last few days in the UK about letting 13 year olds getting hold of the Pill over the counter from chemists without a prescription. Many groups are not happy about this and are calling for it not to happen.

So, do you think that this is a good idea? On the one hand it may mean that there are less teenage pregnancies as the girls will be protected when having sex. However, there is no escaping the fact that it is illegal for girls under the age of 16 to have sex.

But, if these girls are already having sex then shouldn’t they be able to get protection from becoming pregnant? If girls think that they cannot get hold of the Pill easily then they may not bother with contraception.

One thought that comes to mind is that although 13 sounds young for girls to be having sex, we must remember that for hundreds of years, girls were routinely married off at this kind of age and in some countries this was the norm. So they would have been having sex at a young age. In fact the country singer Loretta Lynn was married at the age of 13 as one example.

There are many contradictions in the legal system that seem strange in terms of what you can do at what age but there will always be arguments about what age girls should be legally allowed to have sex at. of course it is the parents that make the laws and they are unlikely to want their children to be sexually active at such an age.

But, if this did take place it would be interesting to see if this did chance the statistics on teenage pregnancies. Are the girls that are getting pregnant mature enough to go and get the pill for themselves or is it more down to a one-off moment of carelessness?