Family planning doctor Mario Rizzo Naudi, quoting UK activist Jan Barlow (December 3) said, "We are setting teenagers adrift in this sexualised society without giving them the tools to look after themselves". This is a most astounding statement. Dr Rizzo Naudi is quoting from an activist who hails from a country, the UK, which is unequalled in its decades-old tradition of sex education, not only among adolescents but even among small children, and this together with the aggressive promotion of contraceptives everywhere. Can this be an admission of failure of the manner in which sexual education has been transmitted to the young with its emphasis, among others, on condom use?

Later on Dr Rizzo Naudi mentions the "positive results achieved elsewhere in the civilised world". Could he please tell us which are the countries which have succeeded in radically reducing the incidence of teenage pregnancies? Surely one of these countries cannot be the UK which has one of the highest incidence of teenage pregnancies in the western world and sadly also of sexually transmitted infections. The promotion of the contraceptive mentality, especially among the young, has simply led to more irresponsible and promiscuous behaviour leading to the spiralling upwards of teenage pregnancies and STIs.

Naturally in most Western countries, having been faced with the harsh truth that contraceptives have not solved problems but simply compounded them, legislators have gone one better and started offering the young a "final solution" to their problem - the killing of their unborn child and this often without parental consent. Various solutions have been offered to the young, besides surgical abortion - the morning- after pill and the abortive pill RU486 - a swift, silent manner to "solve" an unplanned pregnancy.

Do we want Maltese youth to go along the way of the young people of other countries, whose lives are continuously being blighted by a behaviour which so often has dire consequences not only for their present life but more importantly for their future life? Should not Maltese parents reflect deeply before they advise their children to be careful if they cannot be good? More importantly, if they are Christian parents and want to be consistent with their faith, can they serenely tell their children to go along and use condoms if they cannot do otherwise, which is simply an invitation to sin? Finally, should they ask themselves what will they answer their children if the latter, after having taken their advice, find out that condoms are not as safe as they were made out to be?