of Health's suggestion of condoms in high schools. The Hon. Quinton Edness, a caring man, feels that since statistics show many young people are sexually active, they should know how to protect themselves from deadly sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.

They should also have the means to protect themselves. Those who argue that condoms are not perfect are right but that is no argument because condoms are the best physical prevention of sexually transmitted diseases we have and sexually active people are 90 percent safer with a condom than without one. In an ideal Christian world parents would work with their children, boys and girls, who would abstain from sex until marriage. They would have good role models because parents would also have abstained and would abstain from extra-marrital sex. How many adults in Bermuda today have done that? We think very, very few.

We do not live in an ideal world. We live in a world where many young people are sexually active. If they are sexually active in the era of AIDS it is nothing short of criminal not to encourage the use of condoms. As a Country we cannot be placed in a situation where we prefer young people to die of AIDS rather than give them a condom.

Some of the head teachers seem to oppose condoms in school for pesonal reasons and it may be that making condoms available for free has to be public policy which head teachers are instructed to carry out.

The Headmistress of Mount St. Agnes Academy admits that Bermuda has "a very promiscuous generation of youths''. Yet she is staunchly against the idea of condoms in schools. We believe her students must be protected and the Health Ministry should distribute condoms freely in the area of her school and places where her students congregate. Mr. Edness has no other choice. As Health Minister he is sworn to protect the public's health.

Teachers often complain that the students lack parental guidance. Mr. Warren Jones, the Northlands School principal, said in yesterday's newspaper that schools have already taken over discipline where parents failed. That is exactly our point. It is unrealistic to take a stand against condoms and leave the problem to parents or to the community. Parents do not do it because their children do not err and the schools are the community. Ideally the problem would never arrive because everyone would abstain from sex until marriage and then everyone would remain faithful to their spouse. Anyone who thinks that is reality today does not live in a real world.

Head teachers would not knowingly expose their students to polio, or cancer, or cholera, or typhoid. They knowingly want to expose them to AIDS only because sex is involved. The Ministry of Health cannot become involved in the morality of sex. The Ministry of Health knows the churches failed in their job of preventing sex outside marriage and thus young people do have sex a good deal, whether we like it or not, and that it is best to do our best to save them from AIDS. Thus we must give them condoms and save their bodies so that the churches have a soul to deal with.

The solution is for the new Minister of Education, Dr. Terceira, to simply instruct head teachers that condoms will be freely available in high schools in places where students can get them without embarrassment, not the head teacher's office. If the private schools will not comply, hand condoms out to students as they leave those schools. Then the Ministry of Health should saturate places of entertainment, places where young people congregate and sports facilities with free condoms.