Madam, - The results of the Crisis Pregnancy Agency's recent survey (The Irish Times, November 22nd) should not give the CPA a licence to flood the schools with information involving personal risk to students.
The correlation between the increasing use of contraceptives, including condoms, and rising incidence of sexually transmitted diseases is well known. Approaches to questions of sex education are too important to be based on teenager's attitudes, which change with growing maturity.
The study involved 226 teenagers, which seems extremely small compared with the current total of 350,000 teenagers in the State. The study concludes that "the teachings of the Catholic Church are increasingly irrelevant to the attitudes of Irish adolescents towards sex". G.K. Chesterton observed that the decline of Christianity went hand-in-hand with the decline of common sense.
What is needed is a school by school, local and national strategy to build a healthy, responsible Irish society. Parents and teachers need to confer. Crisis contraceptive approaches are negative and should be avoided. The key to life is always putting your energies into something positive. To quote T.S. Eliot "When the crowd is rushing towards the cliff, the man who is going in the opposite direction appears to have lost his way". - Yours, etc.,
SEAN WOODS,
Mount Prospect Drive,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.