Sex education in schools

Press, 27 July 1985, Page 18

Sex education in schools

Sir,—Patricia Bartlett has her facts reversed. A study of teenage pregnancies (the “Lancet,” January 5, 1985), affirms Ronald and Juliette Goldman’s careful study. United States children showed poorest knowledge of sexuality, leading with 96 per 1000 (the only country with an increasing rate). The Netherlands, with formal and informal sex education and readily accessible contraceptive services, have the lowest (14 per 1000). — Yours, etc., JOHN DOBSON. July 25, 1985. Sir,—ln “The Press” of July 24, Patricia Bartlett abuses statistics for her own purposes. She states that because of sex education “unwanted pregnancies” and “schoolgirl abortions” rose in the United Kingdom between 1965 and 1980. Just what is an “unwanted”

pregnancy? (i.e., who does not want it and for what length of its duration?); and how could any nation accurately record such an ambiguous figure? As for abortions, it was the liberalisation of Britain’s abortion laws which allowed many pregnant youngsters to have safe, legal abortions, and thus to enter, for the first time, into the official statistics on abortion, which caused the rise in those statistics, and not sex education. Miss Bartlett must realise that nothing will prevent teenagers having sex. When they do, it is in the interests of all of us that they have knowledge of, and access to, reliable methods of contraception.—Yours, etc., DR PAUL HARRIS, CARROLL HARRIS. July 24, 1985.