The Crisis Pregnancy Agency, set up in 2001 during the debate on the last abortion amendment, was established to reduce the numbers of crisis pregnancies and of women opting for abortion, and to provide counselling and medical services to women with such pregnancies. Its strategy, launched yesterday, is a wake-up call to Irish society.
It is alarming to see that, more than 30 years after the McGee case where the right to contraception was won in the European Court of Human Rights, paving the way for the legalisation of contraception, less than half of sexually active women and only a quarter of sexually active men use it. The figures are even worse where women seeking abortions are concerned - only one in five normally used contraception.
This figure gives the lie to a central argument of those opposing both contraception and abortion - that the two are closely linked, and that high availability of contraception leads to increased abortion. It shows the clear need, outlined in the strategy, for the development of contraceptive services throughout the State, especially outside the main urban centres. But the availability of contraception is of no use unless people know how it works, how to access it, and how to use it.
Another alarming finding in the document is that only half of all schools are fully implementing the Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) curriculum. The CPA's recommendation that both parents and schools play a joint role in delivering RSE is welcome, because such a programme will not be successful without parental involvement.
Contraception is only part of the answer to the problem of unwanted pregnancies, and young people in particular need to be helped resist peer pressure and pressure from the popular media to be sexually active before they are capable of making responsible decisions about their sexual behaviour.
The strategy also examines what happens to those who become pregnant, and makes a number of recommendations to support lone parents and to reform adoption law. It is to be hoped that these recommendations, insofar as they require resources, are taken into account in the preparation of the Budget.
This document, like the recent Irish Times poll about young people's behaviour, shows that denying contemporary reality, and trying to turn back the clock to a time when most young people were not sexually active, will do nothing to solve the problem of crisis pregnancies. The issues involved must be addressed urgently.