Excellent Article. I think that the issue of contraception and safe sex is focused on less because it is inevitable overshadowed by the more emotional issue of abortion. This is almost certainly to the detriment of public policy.

I think we would benefit from a strong campaign to promote condom use, not only targeted at teenagers, but for sexually active persons of all ages. It is likely that there are large sextions of the population that were never exposed to sex education for whatever reason. We cannot ignore such persons.

My most sincere hope is that the issue of safe-sex is not hijacked by those seeking to impose their concept of morality, as has been the case in numerous overseas countries (eg, the US). I fear the introduction of 'abstinence-only' programs, which are somehow seen as more morally acceptable than effective sex-education and promotion of condoms and contraception. Numerous studies have shown that abstinence-only programs are far less effective, and their introduction is likely to hurt Australia.

I agree completely with Rob Moody about the clear positive benefits and dire need, (and the need is dire with rising rates of HIV exposure), for reproduce health education for all young Australians and that this is best delivered by the education system. I believe that this should cover everything from contraception methods, conception planning, sexuality, reproduction itself, reproductive time lines, abortion, reproductive technologies, STI prevention and the issues of consent and respect. And that this should be comprehensively taught to both sexes.

I do, however, disagree with the concept that there are too many abortions. I have stated this in a previous post and re-assert that this stance is illogical. If there are too many abortions; which particular ones are the ones too many? Who decides? This logic allows for the possibility of a state of too few abortions to exist. Then who decides which ones were too few?

I contend that whilst it is a social responsibility to fully educate everyone in our society about all of the health issues that affect them, it then becomes the individual responsibility to make the individual decisions that affect them personally. These decisions that are made by individuals are no body else’s business.

I think what they mean by 'too many abortions', billy, is that these pregnancies should have been avoided in the first place.

This is how sex education is handled in the Netherlands and it demonstrably works. The reason we don't have a similar program in Australia is because a minority of religious extremists [Tony Abbott, for example] set our agendas.

http://www.unesco.org/courier/2000_07/uk/apprend2.htm

A great article and I fully agree.

Almost every abortion is one too many as most pregnancies could have been prevented.

Rex, thanks for the article.
It is true that Holland has the least teenage pregnancies in the world (at least this was the case in 2005 and before, I don't have an update on 2006).

Not only education is important to prevent pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, it is important the contraceptive pill is free, at least for teenagers and low income families. How many teenagers can afford it?

Condoms used to be free for low income families but I'm not sure if that's still the case.

Australian and USA Governments are very good at one thing: denial.
Only now are they 'admitting' that global warming is caused by high CO2 levels etc.
Perhaps they will also come to finally acknowledge that teenagers do have sex, like it or not, and that prevention is the best solution.

Never thought I'd see us agreeing on something, spendocrat! Yes, most pregnancies that end in abortion would be avoidable ones. You have a few exceptions to this, such as pregnancies by rape, babies that have defects (either going to be terminal, or that the parents feel they cant handle), and the odd failure of contraception. But by and large they are avoidable, so why arent more people doing something to avoid it? Buying a condom is a lot cheaper than paying for an abortion, so affordability is no excuse.