I WISH to respond to a couple of letters published on July 14.

The writers of "What's so wrong with chastity?" and "Female shame" both seem to have a lot of venom and anger, but very little education or facts.

I would love to simply bring to the attention of Press readers this simple fact: teenage pregnancy has fallen continually every year since the 1960s.

This is due to a variety of factors, which I don't have space for in a short letter. What is worth stating though that in both this country and Ireland, women who had babies outside wedlock would often be sent to have their babies miles away from home, and had the babies taken from them at birth (as Heather Causnett seems to argue for in her last paragraph).

It is thanks to this "sweep it under the rug" mentality that people believe teenage pregnancy was rare in the 1960s.

Today, to the significantly fewer young girls who become pregnant, we offer support and social acceptability, which people such as Ms Causnett and Mr Hudson would take away.

I urge these people who talk of morality to firstly use facts; secondly to realise how insulting and degrading it is for a young mother to read what they write; and thirdly, to decide whether what they write has more to do with making themselves appear better than actually helping anyone else.

Alex Forbes, Lynwood Close, Strensall, York.