Madam, - Mary Harney does not, in my view, wish to spark a debate on the provision of the morning-after pill to under-age girls, but simply favours a liberal regime in relation to such provision. Elsewhere on the same day as her comments were reported, we read that 49 under-age girls had abortions last year, and the only comment the Crisis Pregnancy Agency has to make is that we need to keep the issue "in perspective". Eleanor Petrie of the National Parents Council has rightly said that "parents have to take responsibility for ensuring their daughters do not find themselves in this situation" (pregnant).
Yes, parents are ultimately responsible for instilling values in their children, but it is not easy in a society that is intent on sexualising those children from an increasingly early age. And how is their job going to be made easier by our Tánaiste recommending contraception for 11-year-olds, in effect condoning that sexualisation?
The demystification of sex, the insistence of a liberal society that sex is purely a personal and not a social matter, the removal of the taboos that once surrounded sex, however well-intentioned the motives, have brought us to a day when we wake up to discover that some children are having sex before they have even reached their teens. How can they possibly know what it is they are doing? Advocating contraception and more sex education as the answer, on the basis that these will equip our children with all they need to handle sex, is laughable. Many adults have difficulty handling sex in a mature way, let alone children.
What in God's name is wrong with promoting the idea of abstinence and chastity? These words seem to generate a knee-jerk reaction of such vitriol that I wonder if people actually know what they mean. I suspect the denunciation of these virtues is because they are promoted most heavily by the Catholic Church. But they are virtues not exclusive to that institution. Apart from pointing out the obvious - that abstinence is the only guaranteed way to avoid pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, Aids, etc - abstinence and chastity allow young people to develop enough emotionally to be able to handle a sexual relationship when it comes along. And chastity is not celibacy.
We have managed to turn something that is wonderful and life-affirming into something mundane and ordinary, with the result that our young people think of sex as just something else to do with their peers, no more special than texting their best friends. And that's sad. - Yours, etc,
MÁIRE GARVEY,
Johnstown Park,
Dun Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.