There has been a debate in the UK on whether it is morally correct to run an immunisation program to inoculate 12 year old girls against cervical cancer. Opponents say it would encourage promiscuity. The medical profession point out the vaccination is only affective if given before girls become sexually active. The results of recent surveys in the UK showed 50% of 16 year old girls were sexually active and 10% of 14 year old; hence the need to inoculate girls as young as12 year olds.What is the cause of change in moral attitudes that has occurred in the last sixty years? Even as late as 1960, young women would “reserve themselves for the wedding night”; and men would expect to marry a virgin. Undoubtedly the contraceptive pill, with the resultant decrease in risk of pregnancy, had a major impact. But that cannot be the sole reason.
In the last twenty years there has been a fundamental change in attitude, not only towards the loss of virginity, but also with respect to having children out of marriage - no longer is illegitimacy a stigma.
In magazines and on television, sex is projected as “the ultimate source of pleasure”. People have forgotten that the anticipation is far better than the realization. A moral barrier no longer exists. Mothers no longer counsel their daughters “not to have sex“, but rather “to take precautions”.
But has the breaking down of barriers been a positive influence in society? Certainly in the UK, the number of unmarried teenage mothers has skyrocketed. Unfortunately, despite the efforts of the mothers, their children will be born into a socially and economically disadvantaged household - there the vast majority will remain for the rest of their lives.
The pendulum has swung fully from advocating complete abstinence to not only indulging in sex being the norm to advancing the message “if you haven’t had sex by the time you are 16 you are frigid and a weirdo”. While it would be unrealistic to re-establish the former norm, there needs to be a re-alignment, where young people do not feel pressured to having sex. Rather they make love to the person they really want to make love to at the time they really want to, without feeling any compulsion.
