I believe I don't need to argue about how major an issue the issue of an unwanted teen pregnancy is. (I realize in different parts of the world girls get married and pregnant in their early teens, but those are different parts of the world, with different cultures).

I think the average age for girls becoming sexually active is around 14-15 in Greece, so it is pretty easy to see why it is important to do something about it, rather than putting young girls through a traumatizing experience like an abortion.

One example of a possible measure teenagers would benefit from, is the service in the Times article below, that will soon be made available to teenage girls in Britain.

Schoolgirls will be able to request the morning-after pill by text message to their school nurse as part of a scheme being introduced this year.

Six schools in Oxfordshire are to take part in the project after a rise in the number of teenage pregnancies in the county.

Any girl at four schools in Oxford and two in Banbury will be given the opportunity to ask for emergency contraception if they have had unprotected sex or their contraception has failed. Parents will not automatically be informed of any request.

Child protection staff will step in if any girl aged between 11 and 13 uses the service.

Family and religious groups expressed concerns about the scheme. They also questioned the absence of a limit to the number of times schoolgirls can use the service.

The text message service will be introduced in July by Oxfordshire County Council and the Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust, which have refused to name the schools involved.

The service will focus on contact with pupils outside school hours. It will also operate on weekends and holidays, when a nurse will arrange to meet the child to give her the pill.

Let me just say, it is beyond the scope of my article - and my blog - to be discussing issues such as teen pregnancies, and that's not what I'm doing. I'm discussing the way certain benefits provided by the technology (SMS) are being put to use in order to serve certain needs.

As described in the article, there is a need for contact with the school nurse for such issues outside of school hours. SMS requests and notifications can certainly cover this need, without being too obtrusive.

SMS also does not compromise the need for a certain level of anonymity, and more impersonal contact, which in some cases is crucial: some girls don't want to talk face to face, and this might cost them not taking the pill and having to go through abortion.

SMS offers just the right level of direct communication needed for this sort of thing, and as such, is an ideal communication medium for this purpose. I hope it helps preventing some unwanted pregnancies and I will be looking out for results from this later in the year, to see if there are any reports for the effectiveness of the service.