MEN DON'T have abortions. Men don't get cervical cancer, either. Look at me, boy genius: I managed to work that out for myself. In fact, a large number of things never happen to men. Does this prevent us from arguing over these things, from debating, legislating, or presuming a right to decide? If you take the question even half-seriously, you must live in a world where men who take vows of chastity do not hand out instructions on sexual hygiene and private morality.

When I was younger, many men regarded contraception as someone else's problem. From what I hear, some things never change, despite - perhaps because of - the brute fact of Aids. Yet that blight had not been imagined when I first became, in the dismal phrase, "sexually active". We had the pill; we had legal abortion as required; we had liberties unparalleled in history.

Women had access, for the first time, to reproductive choice. Men - and I generalise recklessly - breathed one collective sigh of relief. Almost overnight, they ceased to be responsible and were free - this version of sexual liberation was easy to grasp - to be as irresponsible as they liked. Pregnancy was no longer their concern. She was supposed to take care of "that". If she didn't, the blame was hers. The attitude bothered me then, and bothers me still. How many drunken rapes took place because coercive sex was deemed a victimless crime? How many relationships became abusive when the rutting boy-child decided that his actions had no consequences?

The sexual pre-history of humankind is best consigned to the darkness. Contraception and abortion are fundamental rights, not fashion accessories. But how many men still refuse to understand the word "no" merely because they believe they need never answer to paternity's obligations, or name a child?

Society was never permissive: trust me. Old hippies, among their numerous crimes, were as sexist as any superannuated toff. The pill was their get-out-of-jail card, not a means by which human life could be reimagined.

Permissive? Sexual rights are not "permitted", but men are disinclined to shut up. Instead, they abuse the trust of young Polish girls and pontificate, weekly, on the obligations of womanhood. They demand control but dodge every risk. You would almost think they do it on purpose.

My inner bloke was never too reliable. Even back then he had a limited attention span for the weird world of men-only, pints of heavy - with optional vomiting - nights in pubs. He would ask awkward questions. Questions such as: No women? All night? And none of us admits to being gay? And your point is?

Couldn't be bothered. On the other hand, when sexual activity became other than moot, though still technically illegal, I decided that contraception was my business. True, I had to work out the bus route that would take us to Edinburgh's Stockbridge. True, I was (very possibly) insufferably cool. But if you believed the pill to be a joint, rational choice, and if you didn't quite trust the discretion of the GP, you could forgive the insufferable. Just about.

In a subdued New Town office I was being asked two things. First, if I understood a very small part of the meaning of life. Secondly, if I was prepared - for this was the important function of the Brooke Advisory, in those days - to join a revolution. The revolution was this: a woman's right to choose is absolute. Yes or No?

I awaken, decades later, to read of a High Court judge in Dublin decreeing that a 17-year-old's "right to travel" outweighs baying men (and some female bigots) who would have "Miss D" bear a dead child. Fantastic, barbaric, but true. A pregnant kid was put to trial by ordeal just to have Justice McKechnie pronounce a verdict for sanity.

Her baby's brain defect was fatal. Death within three days was inevitable. Yet the power of Irish state, and Ireland's law, was exerted to maintain "the right to life". In this case, as so often, life's rights depended on inflicting the trauma of death upon a very young woman. The Irish Republic's laws are not our laws. Still, what was that stuff about liberation, all those years ago?

Don't patronise Ireland, though. My complacent teenage self awakens again - we don't see enough of him - to good news and bad news. Let's quote. "A new international trial on the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil confirms it is 98% effective at preventing pre-cancerous cervical growths in young women not already infected with HPV-16 or HPV-18, the two strains thought to be responsible for causing most cervical cancers".

I don't understand the science, as usual. As it happens, I don't take the New England Journal of Medicine. I grasp, though, that in the United States there is "controversy" over the notion that a cancer could be defeated if young women are vaccinated. Some appear to believe that the possibility of excruciating death is preferable to allowing sexual activity among teenagers.

Let's quote again. I don't know much, but I do know that the New England Journal holds a copyright on the word "reputable". The authors of its report conclude: "In young women who had not been previously infected with HPV-16 or HPV-18, those in the vaccine group had a significantly lower occurrence of high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia related to HPV-16 or HPV-18 than did those in the placebo group."

Translation: it works, though more testing is needed. In practice, it means, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, that the "vaccine should be given to all schoolgirls aged 11 and 12 as part of routine school vaccination programmes". Who could argue with that? Daft question.

"Parent groups" say vaccinating women at such a young age is "interfering with their sexual development" and may "promote promiscuity". They also say - still quoting - that the treatment could interfere "with their parental right to decide when their daughters should be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease".

I wish I was making this up. There's a parental right to choose a favourite STD for your daughter? More than 20 million Americans have HPV strains that are linked to cervical cancer: fact. Cervical cancer is the second biggest cause of cancer deaths among women. It kills 240,000 every year. Count on the blokes at the Daily Mail for illumination. "GPs are prescribing a controversial anti-cancer vaccine which family campaigners say could promote promiscuity amongst underage girls. The jab is being provided on the NHS even though government experts still have not decided whether it should be rolled out across the UK."

More. "A Daily Mail investigation has revealed that 26 primary care trusts out of 152 in England paid for the jab late last year. The vaccine, Gardasil, offers protection against the sexually-transmitted human papilloma virus, which causes 70% of all cervical cancer cases. Cervical cancer kills 1000 British women a year. It is licensed in the UK for girls aged between nine and 26, and is more effective when administered in girls before they become sexually active."

So here we have one Hugh McKinney, of "the National Family Campaign" - where's my membership? - "warning" that the vaccine could lead "some" girls to assume they are protected against STDs and encourage them to engage in "risky" behaviour. He said: "It could be seen as helping to promote or encourage sexual activity in girls before they are physically or mentally mature."

Idiot's question. Who measured McKinney's maturity? Then again, who licensed Dr Trevor Stammers, of "Family Youth Concern", to assert: "We should be discouraging young people from having intercourse at an even younger age rather than promoting it."

How many women, from this year's quarter of a million, has Dr Stammers elected to kill? Why is every voice quoted above the voice of a man? I don't have a cervix - do the jokes now, boys - but I've been around cancer. Who are these people who will the deaths of children? Who are they who live in terror of sex?

If only we had a vaccine.