Abortion education in the UK

In the UK there is a serious, widespread problem with abortion education in schools and colleges. The only education on abortion I received was a one sided pro-choice lecture when in year twelve.

Quite frankly, it was too little and years too late.

And I’m not the only one.

Whilst researching my EPQ on abortion I was horrified to find that my school wasn't the only one with poor abortion education.

The current law in Britain allows academies to opt out of teaching sex education, as my school did.

This needs to stop. 


Have a beautiful day x

Can genetic diseases be passed from children to their parents?

The scientist inside of me was trying to break out, so here's the article I wrote for the school science magazine this year. You could even count it as revision...

Traditionally, it is thought that genetic diseases are passed from parents to children as offspring receive half of each of their parent’s DNA. However, recent studies have shown that some diseases are transmitted from a child to their mother.

When a foetus is developing in the womb, cells are constantly exchanged from the foetus to the mother via the placenta. For most women, these cells are removed by the immune system shortly after the birth of the baby. In a small proportion of women these cells stay in the body for decades and are incorporated into tissues such as in the brain and skin, in a process called microchimerism.

Mothers who had a low genetic risk of rheumatoid arthritis, where joints become swollen and painful, but went onto develop the condition were found to be likely to show microchimerism. There are two theories to suggest how foetal cells cause arthritis in the mother…

1) The maternal immune system reacts to the foetal cells in an attempt to remove them from the body. As the cells are part of the woman’s tissues the body begins to attack itself, this causes inflammation in the joints.

2) Foetal cells that are stowed in the body attack the mother’s immune system, causing inflammation and joint pain.

For women with an autoimmune disease, where the body’s immune system turns against itself, the development of arthritis from a microchimerism was common. This is because the mother’s body is unable to protect itself from the foetal cells carrying the disease inherited from the father.

Other diseases that microchimerism is thought to cause are:

·       Type 1 diabetes- where the pancreas doesn’t produce any insulin so the blood sugar levels stay constantly high.

·       Scleroderma- a disease of the connective tissue causing hardening of skin and blood vessels.

·       Primary biliary cirrhosis- a liver disease where bile ducts become damaged and the build-up of bile in the liver causes scarring.

It is currently thought that only a small percentage of genetic diseases are caused by microchimerism and that foetal cells have many benefits, such as repairing damage in the mother’s heart during pregnancy. Lots more research is needed to find out exactly what’s happening and why.


Have a beautiful day x
 

References:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26408-fetuss-arthritis-genes-can-affect-the-mother.html#.VMaeyy6YjsQ

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Primary-biliary-cirrhosis/Pages/Introduction.aspx

http://www.sclerodermasociety.co.uk/

Why hasn't Ireland changed its law?

If someone was dying and the doctors knew exactly how to save them, the medication was FDA approved and the sufferer wanted the treatment- you would expect the patient to survive. However, the recent article in the Telegraph reminded me that, the abortion law in Ireland means this sometimes isn’t the case.

For one of my A-levels I took an Extended Project Qualification and chose the topic “Is abortion a moral or molecular issue?” Although I came to the conclusion that it is a mainly moral and emotional decision, the biggest shock during my research was how many women have to have an unsafe abortion because they are illegal in the country they live in. 68000 women die annually after having an unsafe abortion…how can we stand here and watch this happen?

Irish law states that an abortion is legal if the Mother’s life is in danger, but after the death of Savita Halappanavar we know even then doctors refuse to carry out terminations. In Savita’s case, there was no chance of her baby surviving at all.

A report published by Amnesty International says: “Ireland’s abortion regime violates the fundamental human rights of women and girls, including their rights to life, health, equality, non-discrimination, privacy, information and freedom from torture and other ill-treatment.”

I couldn’t agree more.

I don’t understand why a country feels they should be able to force a women into carrying a child. And why they should have the right to tell a women what she should do with her own body, when the decision isn’t affecting the health or safety of others? The choice, which should be a basic human right, is taken away from her.

Irish women often have to travel to England for an abortion, or purchase abortion pills on the internet. If caught, they could be imprisoned for up to fourteen years. To me it seems ridiculous that women and girls trying to make an exceptionally difficult decision about their own life are thought of as criminals.

So if believing in freedom’s a crime, lock me up. Then throw away the key.

Have a beautiful day x

Is it okay to pierce a baby's ears?

If you saw a couple walk out of a tattoo parlour holding a newly tattooed baby you’d probably be shocked. Angry even. If you were waiting in a supermarket queue next to a buggy carrying a child with fake eyelashes, you’d look again to check your eyes weren’t deceiving you. So why is it socially acceptable to pierce a young child’s ears when they’re too young to give their permission? 

Many piercing salons impose their own age restrictions for piercings but there is no legal age restriction for any kind of body piercing in England and Wales.

In Scotland anyone under the age of sixteen must have parental permission to have a piercing and, according to the UK government’s website, 52% of the population believe this should be the law in the rest of Great Britain. So why haven’t we caught up yet?

Some parents pierce their baby girl’s ears so the gender of the baby is obvious. In my opinion that creates more questions than it answers… Why should piercings only be acceptable on females? Isn’t it easier to tell people whether your beautiful child is a boy or a girl? Does it matter if random strangers know the gender of your baby?

On the scientific side of things, piercings can have many complications- from infection to blood poisoning. A young baby doesn’t have a fully developed immune system so isn’t able to fight off disease. There have been cases of earrings becoming embedded in infant’s earlobes and operations under general anesthetic being needed to remove the jewellery. Extremely worryingly, some babies are pierced before they’ve had their first tetanus jab, opening the door to even more serious infection. The growth of earlobes as a child grows up can cause unevenness of piercings in the ears, leading to low confidence and anxiety.

Many parents pierce their child's ears for religious or cultural reasons. On one hand I do understand this but on the other there are so many religious teachings that support the right of people to make their own decisions.

Although I don’t have pierced ears myself, I’m completely supportive of someone making the choice to have a piercing – they allow people to express themselves. However, I believe it should be just that…their choice.

Have a beautiful day x