It's easy enough to blame men/ blame women (both apparently suggested in recent posts). For me, the issue is one of education. In my misspent yoof we had (for example, and not the only one) the Catholic Church which actually opposed "sex education" (I'll come back to that), and such matters as family planning and contraception were completely off the radar, positively sinful. You didn't do it until you were wed, and even thinking about it was sinful. Every bit of advice, what there was of it, to teenagers went completely against human nature and human urges.

So look where we are now. "Sex education" is way, way behind the curve. The internet is where you get your twisted information and your warped attitudes. Ten-year-olds have no problem accessing pornography. You learn that sex is your right and that love don't come into it. Love is replaced by exploitation. You learn that anything goes in any position you like and there's nothing you can't see in glorious technicolor. Schools (only some schools...) make valiant efforts to teach it right, but even with the best intentions they are pissing into the wind. Almost everyone is a sexual being, and sex in its many guises is the most natural thing in the world - yet school draft in "speakers" and "experts" to talk to kids about sex. I suppose it's an advance on the priests who "taught us sex" in "retreats" and on those special lessons from the school nurse...

We can't win this battle unless every responsible adult in every school, and every responsible parent, accepts that they have a role. Any teacher who says that they "don't do sex because they do physics" should be sacked (or at least seriously retrained)! Every school worker, as part of their remit, should be showing children good, positive, respectful relationships with each other and between them and the children. Good sex can only happen within a mutually-respectful and fully-consensual relationship. That means in in the context of full knowledge and of strong self-respect, not just mutual respect. Contraception should be taught and should be freely available. We can set age limits and other rules if we like, but in my cloud-cuckoo land we wouldn't need them.

It's an aspiration, but it's a nettle that has not been grasped. It's not about men with roving willies or horny women getting into bother. It's a deep-seated challenge for society that can't be confronted by finding somebody to blame. Get it right and abortion numbers will dwindle to near-nothing. In the meantime, abortion must be a freely-available option without time limits and delays. Campaigning against abortion must not be permitted within a mile of clinics.

And whatever we do, we must keep the priest, nuns, imams and rabbis strictly out of it.