Dangerous analogy: safer "cutting"

I spent part of the weekend encouraging doctors to teach teens and adolescents that abstinence is the best and only way to avoid pregnancy and Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Unfortunately, most of the doctors who are involved in making medical policy consider this a "right wing religious" idea and prefer to teach children how to use condoms and contraceptives and to supply them with what they "need."

Thank you, Nancy Valko, for forwarding the link to this article from World Net Daily telling about nurses in the UK who support giving clean blades and bandages for those teens who cut themselves.

Here's an excerpt from another article, this one from the (London) Times Online.

NURSES want patients who are intent on harming themselves to be provided with clean blades so that they can cut themselves more safely.

They say people determined to harm themselves should be helped to minimise the risk of infection from dirty blades, in the same way as drug addicts are issued with clean needles.

This could include giving the “self-harm” patients sterile blades and clean packets of bandages or ensuring that they keep their own blades clean. Nurses would also give patients advice about which parts of the body it is safer to cut.

The proposal for “safe” self-harm — which is to be debated at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Congress in April — is likely to provoke controversy.

At present nurses are expected to stop anyone doing physical harm to themselves and to confiscate any sharp objects ranging from razor blades to broken glass and tin cans.

However, Ian Hulatt, mental health adviser for the RCN, said: “There is a clear comparison with giving clean needles to reduce HIV. We will be debating introducing a similar harm-reduction approach. This may well include the provision of clean dressing packs and it may mean providing clean ‘sharps’.

“Nurses who encounter individuals who self-harm on a regular basis face a dilemma. Do they go for prohibition? Or do we allow this to occur in a way that minimises harm?”

We should tell them that it is harmful, and that they are our children, we love them, and we will do our best to protect them from hurting themselves. Unfortunately, the message is often "unbiased" in the way this article from the American Family Physician is (admittedly the best one I've seen).