App that lets you ‘impregnate your friends’ blasted by family planning groups

A new iPhone app that lets you "impregnate your friends" with the touch of a button is causing controversy just a day after its release.

There are already plenty of smartphone apps available that let you see what you or a friend look like bald, or with pink hair, or even how you might look in 50 years’ time.

The latest one to be added to the genre, however, is creating quite a stir just a day after its release.

Knocked App, created by Sydney-based start-up Appy Dude, allows users to ‘knock up’ their friends with a single tap, showing what they’d look like just prior to giving birth.

But according to a report in Melbourne’s The Age, family planning groups in the country have criticized the app as irresponsible.

The tongue-in-cheek blurb on the creator’s website says the app features “‘evolutionary’ technology that delivers pregnancy into the digital age.”

Users can impregnate anyone they meet “simply by taking a photo of them, marking up the image and pressing a button.” It adds that thanks to the ability to share the resulting image on social networking sites, “you can meet someone and conceive with them with just the press of a button.”

Appy Dude’s Angus Mullane told The Age that the 99-cent iPhone app is intended as a bit of harmless fun. “We really just wanted to give people a laugh. It’s had an amazing response. It’s all over Facebook with teenage girls scaring their mums and stuff like that,” he said.

‘Absolutely dreadful’

The app has already upset some people, however, with Joanne Ramadge of Australia’s Sexual Health and Family Planning group calling it “absolutely dreadful.”

She told The Age, “Teenage pregnancy is an extremely serious issue and to treat it in such a trivial way is not a considered or helpful approach….Teenage pregnancy causes quite a lot of distress and problems for young people and their families and it should not be treated in such a light-hearted way.”

Ramadge added that in a worst case scenario it could even be used to bully. “This could be very easily used to make someone look as if they’re pregnant and dispersed in a way that could be quite horrifying and devastating for some people,” she explained.

Mullane, who admitted Knocked App might not be to everyone’s taste, said that Apple seemed to take plenty of time to approve the app – it was submitted two months ago before going live on Thursday – suggesting evaluators took a long, hard look at it before allowing it through.

“Impregnating girls and guys of all ages has never been this easy,” it says on Knocked App’s website, adding “Not even the Octomom will be able to keep up with you!”

A bit of a laugh? Absolutely dreadful? Let us know what you think of Knocked App in the comments below.