The relevance of sexual education

There is a remarkable ignorance about sexuality among Chilean teenagers, as underscored by the paper by Fernandez et al, published in this issue. The authors analyze the biological, psychological and social consequences of th e lack of parental and school sexual education. Among them, there is an inc reasing incidence of unwanted pregnancies, abortions and sexually transmitt ed diseases in teenagers. Child abuse, neglect, battering, mortality and ma ternal deprivation are more frequent among the offspring of teenage parents . School desertion caused by unwanted pregnancies will seriously jeopardize the education and training of these teenagers, perpetuating th cycle of po verty.