Sir, Janice Turner has highlighted the wrong issue with regard to burgeoning teenage pregnancies (Comment, June 21).

She argues that “the more sex education they get, the later a child remains a virgin”. Throughout my secondary school years, we all received plenty of useful sex education. There was also plenty of casual sex. Diagrams of our sexual make-up, combined with “informative” videos, are not going to do the job of reducing teenage pregnancies.

Ms Turner tells “religious busybodies” that “sex is part of life — get over it”. Yet far from shaming sex, in the correct circumstances God dignifies and glorifies it. Therefore, what is needed is not more education about the biology of sex, but about its psychological nature in order to flesh out the moral framework that lies within us all. Deep down, all of us are searching for that innate happiness and security we often seek in sex. No wonder we cannot find it when we abuse it with only an amoral education to refer to.

Richard Whitney
Pewsey, Wilts

Sir, The sex education I received from my parents 30-odd years ago worked very well for me. My mother left a sex education book (with lots of fascinating pictures in) lying around the house and my father growled at me once that if I got pregnant he wouldn’t support me or the child. Needless to say I didn’t dare get pregnant until my 40s and now I’m an exhausted “older mum”.

Lucy Hack
Clifton, Bristol

Sir, I don’t suppose there could be a correlation between the increase in under-age alcohol consumption and pregnancy and abortion rates rising in under-18s in Britain? No sex education or contraceptive advice will be considered by people who have consumed excess amounts of alcohol before a sexual encounter.

Coleene Tudor
Hereford

Sir, I work in a pastoral capacity at a large mainstream school in a good catchment area. Sex education is included in the phse curriculum. Despite this we regularly have to give advice to under-16 girls on how to obtain the morning-after pill. I believe that the boys involved should take some responsibility for their actions. A number of them are in the sixth form and, as such, know the girls they are involved with sexually are under the age of consent. The police say they only prosecute older men but surely this sends out the wrong message? The boys can just walk away from these situations with their reputations intact and no blame attached. The girls must face the consequences whatever they might be.

Janet Hutchings
Chesterfield, Derbyshire

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