Politics
Thursday September 2, 2004
Scotland's Cardinal Criticizes School Sex Ed Programs as "State-Sponsored Sexual Abuse"
TODAY'S HEADLINES
E-MAIL
PRINT
EDINBURGH, September 2, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Scotland's prelate, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, has lashed out at lawmakers for their public school sex education program, calling it "state-sponsored sexual abuse." He described the new sexual health strategy as "one of the biggest challenges to the morality of our nation in a generation."
Included in a critique published in the Sunday Times, Cardinal O'Brien said the new guidelines would mean sex education would now be taught to children three and four years old, while contraceptives and abortion would be available to teenage girls without the knowledge or consent of their parents.
Cardinal O'Brien predicts that the unveiling of the government's sex-ed proposal in October will ignite a backlash from parents unlike any before. "I fear the passions ignited by the section 28 debate [backlash by parents against the overt promotion of homosexuality in public education] could be a mere flicker compared with the protests of parents determined to preserve their children's innocence and protect their childhood," the Cardinal wrote, as reported by The Guardian. "Parents are rightly appalled at the idea of prepubescent, far less pre-school children, being provided with graphic and intimate sexual instruction."
A government executive group has been working on a national sexual health strategy since 2002 to address skyrocketing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease rates - one of the highest in Europe.
Scotland's First Minister, Jack McConnell, has already promised the measures in question would not be implemented: "He mentions the morning-after pill being given to teenagers. But we have made it absolutely clear that must not happen in schools to those who are under the age of 16 and that is a policy that is being properly administered across Scotland. He also suggests we are going to have sex education for under-fives which I can absolutely guarantee is not going to happen."
The Moslem Association of Britain Saturday expressed their support for the Cardinals's position.
In May, as many as four hundred girls, some as young as 14, were sterilized by doctors in Scotland at public expense, without their parents' knowledge. The program was part of an effort by public health officials to stem the growing number of teenage pregnancies.
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Scotland To Send Birthday Cards With Sex And Contraception Advice To 14-Year-Olds
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2000/nov/00111403.html
Scottish Doctors Sterilize up to 400 Girls Without Parental Notification http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/may/04050308.html
tv
Back to TopLatest Headlines
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase out Lab Rats
- Ohio Supreme Court Allows Planned Parenthood to Conceal Abortion Records in Sexual Abuse Case
- LifeSiteNews Canada Day and Independence Day Message. Taking a few days off. LSN returns Monday July 6
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Pro-Life Groups Announce New Colorado Personhood Initiative
- Judge Puts Kibosh on DC Gay "Marriage" Referendum
- Al Franken Win Hands Supermajority to Senate Democrats
- Group Funded by Canadian Bishops' D&P Joins with Others to Denounce the "Natural Family" and "Family Rights"
- Financially Troubled Planned Parenthood of El Paso Closes Doors
- Abortion Linked to Subsequent Pre-Term Births, New Research Again Confirms
- New Orleans Homosexual Couple Ask Fed. Court to Overturn Marriage Amendment
- Slim Hope Of New Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Promoting Pro-Life, Pro-Family Issues
- Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Caught Involved in Homosexual Encounters
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Northern Ireland Politician Cleared of Wrongdoing after Reiterating Christian Teaching on Homosexual Acts
- UK Conservative Leader Speaks at Gay Pride Fundraiser
- More Letters to the Editor on Canadian Catholic Development and Peace Scandal (July 1)
- Letters to the Editor - Readers Respond to Development and Peace Scandal
- Watch This Dramatic New Video on Catholic Bishops Conference Funding of Pro-Abortion Groups
Most Read this Week
- Homosexual Duke U. Director Charged with Offering Adopted 5-Year-Old for Sex
- Famed Fr. Corapi Calls Canadian Bishops' Dissent from Humanae Vitae "Catastrophic"
- Pope: It is a Childish Faith to Oppose the Church Teaching on Life and Family
- LifeSiteNews Detailed Response to Canadian Bishops' Whitewash Report on Development and Peace
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Is Pro-Choice the New Pro-Life?
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase Out Lab Rats
- Swedish Parents Won't Tell if Child is Boy or Girl as Gender Experiment
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.