Lowering the age of consent to 15 (where it stands in Sweden) or 14 (where it’s set in Germany and Italy) would “take these enormous pressures off children and young people” who feel they need to hide their sexual activity, said John Ashton, president of the UK Faculty of Public Health. Concern over running afoul of the law prevents sexually active teenagers from seeking help from adults when they need it, Ashton said. The policy shift would better empower teachers and other supervising adults to provide sexual health education and contraception access to 14- and 15-year-old students. Said Ashton: “They are doing it, and we need to be able to support them and protect them.”

The argument for relaxing age of consent laws is typically focused on protecting older sex partners, who can be aggressively prosecuted for having sex with (sometimes, only slightly) younger people. In 2007, Slate’s Will Saletan argued that when it comes to sex involving minors, “the ages of the parties vary widely from case to case,” and in courtrooms across the United States, “horny teenagers are being thrown in with pedophiles.” He added: “Having sex at 12 is a bad idea. But if you’re pubescent, it might be, in part, your bad idea. Conversely, having sex with a 12-year-old, when you’re 20, is scummy. But it doesn’t necessarily make you the kind of predator who has to be locked up.”

Defending a 20-year-old’s right to have sex with a 12-year-old is unlikely to make a very powerful case for relaxing age of consent laws.