State Film to Promote Chastity

Teaching sexual self-control is a very legitimate option with a desirable goal. Not only does sexual abstinence avoid pregnancy, it also avoids sexually transmitted diseases and a lot of possible emotional instability.

Proper promotion of abstinence emphasizes the proper role of sex, that of enhancing a long-term love relationship. It is not “ignoring” teen-agers’ sexuality, as you claim. Rather, making contraceptives easily available gives a covert permission to go ahead and “indulge.”

The vast majority of birth-control methods are faulty. Many of them are potentially very dangerous to the women using them. Abstinence is not only a more moral method, it is the most statistically effective method. Admittedly, not everyone can exercise that kind of self-control. But shouldn’t the most effective birth-control method be made available to young people? It is precisely what the governor and the Right-to-Life League has in mind, by financing a film promoting this method.

And you have the nerve to make jest of the effort! What grossly irresponsible journalism!

LIZ MICHAEL

Beverly Hills