YOU state (Oxford Mail opinion, March 24) that “Our aim must be to reverse that trend [of teenage pregnancies]”.

I agree, but continuing with a failed policy will do nothing to change the situation.

In 2000, the Government launched its Teenage Pregnancy Strategy which included making the morning after pill (MAP) widely available to teenage girls as part of its efforts to reduce teenage pregnancies by 2010.

Examining ways to address this issue is necessary, but dishing out more of the same is leaving young people with the adverse social consequences that flow from it and deprives them of any moral compass.

Supporting them to develop character qualities of stability, faithfulness and commitment in order to build strong and lasting relationships would be a start.

The Government has announced additional funding of £20.5m to provide easier access to contraception, as if ignorance is the problem, when evidence shows that increased access to sexual health advice and contraception, including MAPs, has made no appreciable difference to recorded conception rates among under-age girls, or halted the continuing rise in sexually-transmitted diseases.

Encouraging children to text in for morning after pills is irresponsible and abandons children to take a drug which is 50 times the potency of a daily contraceptive pill, and is in contradiction of official guidance which states that “no pupil under the age of 16 should be given medication without his or her parents’ written consent”.

Eileen Wojciechowska, Burford Road, Black Bourton