IN FRANCE school medical staff will be able to dispense the morning-after contraceptive pill to secondary pupils, as part of a government campaign to cut the rate of teenage pregnancies and abortions. Schools minister Segolene Royal told an audience of school nurses that the pill, NorLevo, would be given to girls only “in distress and extreme emergency”. They would then be referred to family planning centres. About 10,000 girls under 18 become pregnant each year in France, and 6,700 of them choose abortion.
