‘Revolution’ held to blame

Press, 22 October 1983, Page 6

‘Revolution’ held to blame

A host of medical problems has emerged as a consequence of the “sexual revolution,” according to a visiting English morals campaigner, Mrs Valerie Riches.

Mrs Riches, secretary of the Responsible Society in England, whose trip to New Zealand has been sponsored by the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards, spoke in Christchurch yesterday of sterility caused by abortion and venereal disease, and the rapid increase in genital herpes.

Cervical cancer was also now occurring in much younger women — the peak age for it had dropped 20 years in the last seven years, said Mrs Riches. There was a link between early promiscuity and the disease, although Mrs Riches emphasised that it had no single “cause” and women who had led irreproachable lives also got

The spread of sex education ana contraception had had a reverse effect among young people to those their advocates claimed, said Mrs Riches. Sex education, as taught in Britain, encouraged sexual activity, she said.

“The alternative is to put more emphasis on the very many medical and social reasons why young people should restrain from sexual intercourse.

“If we had a campaign on those sines to the extent to

which we have a campaign for contraception for teenagers we should see a great change in attitudes,” said Mrs Riches.

Mrs Riches deplored the fact that changes in British morals had reached the stage where those who advocated sex with - children could openly state their beliefs.

Sexual licence had opened the door to exploitation of women and children, said Mrs Riches. She was heartened that feminists had come, by a roundabout route, to similar views and had increasingly rejected the contraceptive pill and abortion, which harmed their bodies, and pornography, which degraded them.