I recently attended a local seminar on teenage pregnancy. Our city has afairly high rate and we listened to presentations looking at factorsleading to this, and possible solutions.
Although the UK's figures have dropped slightly recently, our attitudetowards sex and young people still leaves us lagging behind some of ourEuropean counterparts.
Following the presentations we worked in discussion groups looking atwhat the solution could be. One local councillor was very vocal. "It'stime we stopped all this sex education and started teaching them to keeptheir legs closed," he began. "Rather than teaching lessons thatencourage sex, shouldn't we teach more on abstinence?"
I had to disagree. "If we teach children age-appropriate sex andrelationships education from an early age they will grow up with a farhealthier attitude to making decisions around sex and pregnancy," Iresponded.
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