In Scotland for instance, abortions among under-16s reached record levels a couple of years ago despite efforts by the Family Planning Association to improve sex education and prevent unwanted pregnancies.  Commenting on the phenomenon, Tim Street, chief executive of the FPA observed that young people were getting mixed messages since ‘as a society we are allowing sexual imagery to be used out of context all the time to promote products, to promote events’.  

This contradiction and others relating to the subject need to be debated with sensitivity and with attention to various aspects including the psychological, public health statistics on the impact on AIDS prevention and so on. Judging by reports carried in this paper, the Committee and much of the testimony it has relied upon appears to have been dominated by emotion and preconceptions rather than facts on the ground. The fear of the new and the personal is a universal phenomenon. To retreat into a mythic past out of squeamishness is to abdicate responsibility towards the future.

amrita.shah@expressindia.com