According to statistics, 13 million abortions occur in China each year. Over one-fifth of all teenage girls who have had premarital sex became pregnant unexpectedly, of which 91% chose to have an abortion. Repeated abortion is a particularly serious issue.

Zhao Lei, a 26-year-old woman, had been trying and failing to conceive since she married. Her doctor told her that she could not conceive because of an abortion she previously received when she was dating a guy in Beijing and got pregnant by accident. "I can never forget the pain I went through then," Zhao said. The most upsetting thing is that more and more young women are going through the same pain as Zhao at younger ages. University students have even become the majority of this group.

Advertisements for so called "painless abortion" are seen almost everywhere, making young people increasingly careless about terminating pregnancies. Ads claim that the surgery only takes three minutes, and it won't impact a young woman's normal life one bit. In fact, "painless abortion" is far from safe and may result in perforation of the uterus or infection.

Teenagers have an open mind about sex nowadays, but sex education has not caught up with them. According to a survey of adolescent reproductive health, 60% of unmarried teenagers hold an open attitude towards premarital sex and 22.4% have actually had sex before marriage. However, very little sex education is taught in school. Only 14.4% of adolescents and teens know the appropriate way to prevent AIDS. "There is a clear gap between teenagers' diversified sexual desires and relatively backward sex education and medical care in China," Hu Yukun, a professor at Peking University, said bluntly.

"We shouldn't deceive ourselves – some bad influences should be dealt with, not avoided. Parents should communicate with their children about these issues," Professor Hu pointed out. "China still prefers 'abstinence-only' education, but the truth is that teenagers won't listen to it at all. We should teach students enough about sex and let them make the decision themselves."

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