Teenage conceptions are falling but abortions in this age group are rising. What can we conclude? Clearly, that more unwanted pregnancies are ending in abortion.

Abortion is legal and its use to prevent gymslip mothers - as they used to be called - is appropriate except to those who oppose abortion on principle. The concern should not be how their pregnancies are ended but why so many of them begin, almost a decade after the Government launched its campaign to reduce them.

The results have not been a total disappointment although the target of reducing teenage pregnancies to half the 1998 level by 2010 will be missed. In part, this failure may be blamed on the tendency to overanalyse that has bedevilled this Government. Instead of focusing on a single objective - stopping girls getting pregnant before they are ready - the strategy has become bogged down in issues of female self-esteem and other sociological baggage. That tends to obscure a simple target in torrents of well-meant words. It would have been braver to have compelled schools to teach sex properly. The Government may now be coming round to this conclusion, but a bit late.

The actual law on teenage abortions is clear. So long as a doctor is convinced that a girl is competent to give informed consent, an abortion can go ahead without parental approval. It makes common sense, too. In some cases, the unwanted child might be the product of incest, so requiring a girl to have parental consent to deal with the results of parental abuse, which would be nonsensical.

In practice, girls usually do turn up with parents, sisters, or aunts. Because of their uncertainty and panic over what to do, they often report late, so abortions in this age group are more likely to be carried out surgically under general anaesthetic.

Contraception is a much better option. The abortion charities argue that better access to contraceptives should accompany better sex education. The only legal requirement made of schools at present is that they teach children the basic facts of human reproduction, as in a science lesson. Even when schools broaden it out to include discussions on relationships it is often low-calibre stuff, taught by embarrassed staff, not qualified for the subject, who hate doing it.

Compare that with the Netherlands where, for example, all young teenagers are taught how to put a condom on a model erect penis properly and take it off again. Schools are not alone in dodging the issue. British parents simply do not talk to their children enough about sex, preferring to kid themselves that since they live in such a sexualised age their children must know it all already. Studies show fathers are especially poor at this aspect of parenting.

A spokeswoman for the helpline Parentline Plus said that it was inundated with calls from anxious families who fear their sons and daughters are taking risks. It argues that both parents must act more responsibly. “We know from research that teenagers who talk to their parents about sex are more likely to delay having intercourse, have fewer partners and are more likely to use contraception,” she said. “We need to engage parents more in this process, and fathers in particular, to encourage them to talk to their children.”

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