IT was 1994, break-time at school and I was hanging out in the girls' toilets pretending to smoke cigarettes (but secretly being too scared to) when one of the 'cool girls' ran in and threw up in a cubicle next to us.
I sneaked away from the smokers and asked her if she was okay. She was fine – it was just a couple of pills she had taken that had done it. And then she asked me if I had ever taken them too.
At 14 years old and still too embarrassed to have a bo
yfriend, let alone a sex life, I had no idea what the morning-after pill was and offered up as a desperate attempt at conversation – and perhaps friendship – that I had taken my multi-vitamins too. She laughed, told me I was cute and took me for an Irn Bru and bag of crisps to explain.
"It's what you take after you've had sex," she said, nonchalantly. "It's so you don't get pregnant."
But isn't that what condoms and the pill is for, I offered, remembering our recent sex education class that was just as mortifying as that conversation.
"If you bother with them," she smiled, before adding, "you have had sex, haven't you?"
Erm, yes, tonnes of it, I mumbled into my crisp packet. And with that, I got the seal of approval and got let in – albeit temporarily – to the cool group.
But Miss Popular wasn't the only one who had taken the morning-after pill, I soon found out. Quite a few people at school had popped pills after they'd hopped out of bed with Paul from chemistry or Mark from maths, using it as a form of contraception after swigging White Lightning cider gave them condom amnesia.
Some of them hadn't even had full sex but the morning-after pill was naively seen as a right of passage for the sexually active – and emotionally immature. You simply visited the local family planning clinic, told them the condom had broken and, voila, you were handed four pills which made you violently ill, got you off school and gave you a one-way ticket to coolness.
I can't believe how reckless some of my peers once were. And when I heard that schoolgirls in Dorset can now get the morning-after pill without even uttering a word by flashing a 'modesty' contraception card, I was shocked. Apparently the cards will allow youngsters to request the pill simply by placing the card on the pharmacist's counter, ending those embarrassing explanations. Hundreds of request cards have been distributed in schools and youth clubs.
It will cut unplanned pregnancies, supporters have claimed, which may be true but from my experiences – and those of my now adult friends – it will also encourage those irresponsible and lax attitudes to have sex, risking STIs and pregnancy.
While requesting the pill may be daunting for some teens and the card a welcome relief, for others it's an excuse to be even more lazy, have inappropriate sexual activity and show off their "cool" cards.
