CYP Now - The moral majority needs a reality check

It was the researcher from the BBC who alerted me to the front page of The Sun. A baby-faced boy had fathered a child at the age of 12; he was now 13.

I watched the YouTube clip on The Sun's website and was struck by Alfie Patten's response to the question: "How are you going to cope financially?" "What's 'financially'?", he said.

Later the same day I was on a radio phone-in on the matter. Naturally the BBC pitted me against someone eager to blame the situation on sex education in schools. I pontificated about the research evidence: sex education generally delays the onset of active sexual behaviour and tends to produce more responsible safer sex, although not always. This is, of course, the classic educational problem: you can raise awareness but you do not necessarily change behaviour.

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