When sex education openly promotes contraception as the only alternative to preventing STIs and unplanned pregnancy, this compounds the matter and encourages promiscuity. The contraceptive mentality views pregnancy as an inconvenience. For some, abortion becomes the logical solution to remove the unwanted consequence of a mistake once contraception has failed.

A time-series study published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health in June 2008 reported that the majority, 67 per cent, of the women attending for an abortion at a South Adelaide hospital had used some form of contraception at the time of conception. Of these, 36 per cent used condoms, 28 per cent hormone methods such as the pill, while three per cent used natural family planning methods.

The Guttmacher Institute (US), the research arm of Planned Parenthood which openly advocates abortion and contraception, reported that, of the 857,475 legal induced abortions that were reported in 2000, 54 per cent of US women who had an abortion were using a contraceptive method in the month they became pregnant .

In 2006, Kate Worsley, of Marie Stopes International, abortion providers and promoters said, "In my experience most women were very clear about their decision, the rising number of abortions is a failure of contraception - with it either letting women down or being used inappropriately". Despite this bleak admission, Marie Stopes continue to hand out contraception to teenagers, claiming to be working to lower the number of unplanned pregnancies knowing that this will most likely translate into future abortions.

In an interview on the BBC, Melissa Dear of the Family Planning Association in the UK was asked to explain why abortions were still so high despite widespread sex education programmes. She said, "using contraceptive methods in advance of sex, like the pill, or during sex, like the condom, is still a problem for many. We do have people who forget or misuse their contraception. The British government's teenage pregnancy strategy aimed to cut the conception rate among under-18s by 15 per cent between 1998 and 2004, and to halve that rate by 2010. It has spent more than £250 million, yet has only achieved an 11.5 per cent reduction".

WHO estimates that two-thirds of sexually transmitted infections worldwide occur in teenagers and young adults. In spite of their strategy, rates of STIs in the UK are on the increase. One needs to be reasonable and understand that medical professionals have a responsibility to ensure that persons carrying STIs do not infect others.

However, we should also recognise all the facts when considering what action should be taken.

Local studies show that approximately 23 per cent of students are sexually active. Does this justify a sex education programme in our schools that would feed students the false impression that early sexual activity is in fact inevitable, possibly encouraging even more promiscuity? Wouldn't this compromise the majority of our students who are not yet sexually active or possibly even thinking about it?

Any programme needs to be well planned and take into account the reasons why a minority of young students are sexually active; we have a responsibility to identify and target the root causes as to why these two groups act so very differently and build on the positive, rather than justify the inappropriate actions of some with a blanket solution for all.