According to the British Daily Mail, the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS) "is telling school pupils [mainly teens] they have a 'right' to an enjoyable sex life and that it is good for their health. A Health Service leaflet says experts concentrate too much on the need for safe sex and loving relationships, and not enough on the pleasure it can bring. But family campaigners last night [July 11] condemned the guidance, saying it encouraged underage sex and could increase rates of sexually-transmitted diseases" (Daniel Martin, "Pupils Told They Have a 'Right' to a Good Sex Life," July 12, 2009).

"Steve Slack, director of the Centre for HIV and Sexual Health at NHS Sheffield, ... added that as long as teenagers are fully informed about sex and making decisions free of peer pressure as part of a caring relationship, they have as much right as an adult to a good sex life" (ibid., emphasis added throughout). The tragic results of this type of teaching are manifestly clear: "About 40,000 teenagers become pregnant every year in the UK—the highest level in western Europe. More than half end in abortion" (ibid.).

We should all consider the advice of the late American historians Will and Ariel Durant, which applies both to young people and the adults influencing them. "No one man [or woman], however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history.

"A youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by customs, morals, laws, he may ruin his life [or hers] before he matures sufficiently to understand that sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints if it is not to consume in chaos both the individual and the group" (The Lessons of History, 1968, pp. 35-36).

If you would like help in educating teenagers to the real dangers of premarital and extramarital sex, introduce them to a sound biblical approach with our free booklet Marriage and Family: The Missing Dimension. (Source: Daily Mail [London].)