I expect I will need to read the entire report that the media have taken small elements from today. That abortion clinics will be allowed to advertise on TV and that Adverts for condoms can be shown more widely and earlier than they can now. Our young people are really not all that well educated about sex and while generally most of them don’t have sex before they are 16, a fair number do and when they do it is often fueled by alcohol. Education in school seems to be no better than I received 30 years ago. It is generally about the biological act of sex rather than being about relationships, about love and about how to have those relationships without sex.

Girls and boys need to be able to form relationships of all types with each other and with their families and teachers. They need to know how to trust, and to understand the issues of real life in the 21st century. They need to know that they can get the best possible education, they need to be able to aspire for the best possible exam results, job and life in general. They need to know that we adults will do the best for them, and that we won’t cause them harm.

Teenage pregnancy and the kind of sexual behaviour associated with it is often concentrated in particular town and parts there of. It is associated with poverty, with poor attainment and attendance at school. These are the same children who are hanging around the streets, maybe getting drunk, they may have families who are complex and who themselves are not in work. Teenagers who become pregnant are often the product of a parent who became pregnant themselves before the age of 20.

By all means advertise condoms and where to go if you become pregnant. But lets actually do more to educate our young people, to love and to nurture them, to care for them and to teach them about relationships not just about sex.

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