Sir, - According to a report in The Irish Times (August 9th), Ms Norah Geary, a midwife, suggested at a Southern Health Board meeting that teenagers from 14 years "should be issued with free condoms". Don't we know this procedure has failed dismally in the UK? It invites children to get into sexual intimacy. Peer pressure encourages the bravado of carrying condoms and boasting (truth fully or otherwise, of sexual conquests. They develop a taste for the game.
The secular society in which our children grow up is already chaotic enough, with many parents and teachers failing to support the inculcation of such virtues as respect, self-control and the delaying of self-gratification. We are led to believe that children should be free to choose their own "values".
Who is teaching the responsibility that comes with moral freedom? Children have to be taught to assess the consequences of their actions, the difference between right and wrong, and the real meaning of love.
Ms Geary, in support of the claim that we must hand out free condoms, claims that "teenagers could not be relied on to buy their own protection. They would rather spend the money on drink or ecstasy tablets and recreation." This further reveals the real need on the part of adults to instil values and exert discipline. Values protect rather than imprison the human spirit.
Parents seem to have become confused and soft in exerting their natural authority. Are we going to abdicate our parental authority and allow the State to decide what is best for our children? Perish the thought! - Yours, etc.,
Angela MacNamara, Lower Kilmacud Road, Dublin 14.