Teenage Pregnancies

Re “Sex, Not Abortion, Is the Issue,” by Anna Runkle, Column Left, July 25: Runkle wants to know why sensible people risk unintended pregnancy when there is so much information and technology that would seem to preclude, or greatly reduce, the risk.

Runkle and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America seem bound and determined that every teenager is jumping into bed every night and nothing is going to stop it. When is later? Later is when you are married. At what age should we begin to worry that one’s virginity is the mark of loserdom? There was a time when losing one’s virginity before marriage was the mark of loserdom.

Runkle does not want to moralize at the family planning clinics, so as to not scare off those in need of contraception. Excuse me? “Family planning?” Seems that the time to plan a family is when you are physically, emotionally, financially and morally ready for a lifetime commitment. Until then, maybe the family planning clients are looking for answers; maybe they are looking for moralizing.

Runkle does have her last paragraph right, one that could have been written by the “religious right.” “It is perhaps more true about sex than anything else in the world: We have the power to change only ourselves.” To avoid unwanted pregnancy, a girl or woman need control only herself.

LAWRENCE BERG

San Gabriel

I can’t think of a worse bill of goods to be giving young people than that of total, inflexible abstinence from sex until marriage (“Abstinence Education Is at Risk,” by Caia Hoskins, Column Right, July 25). Nothing will get callow youth rolling faster into early and possibly disastrous matrimony than the rose-colored goggles of their inexperience. There are many caveats to be given, of course, but not in this blanket form.

TONY BIRD

Northridge