By Hilary White
LONDON, November 14, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – While in the US the battle over sex-education and abstinence education is ongoing, across the pond in Britain, abstinence-only education is making some small introductory strides.
Britain suffers one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion in the developed world. It was recently revealed by the government that a staggering one in four pregnancies end in abortion. In this context, government health and education agencies have offered only more of the same types of sex-education programmes that critics say has created the problem.
Into this charged situation, the Family Education Trust, a non-profit organisation, has produced a pamphlet that will be distributed in all British secondary schools that urges teenagers to hold off sexual activity until marriage.
Entitled “Why have sex?”, the pamphlet presents four reasons to abstain from sexual activity until marriage: “Because it’s healthy; because marriage is the best setting in which to bring children into the world; because it leads to a more trusting marriage; and because it’s worth the wait.”
Norman Wells, the director of the Family Education Trust, told the Daily Telegraph, “Divorcing sex from marriage has not only led to high teenage conception rates and the sexual health crisis in the UK, but it is also has a major part to play in family breakdown.”
“The trust rejects the fatalistic and defeatist view that it is unrealistic to expect young people to save sex for marriage and that any teaching or encouragement to that end simply ‘doesn’t work’.”
The abortion organisation, Marie Stopes International, as well as various pro-abortion and sex-education organisations has been a major influence in the politics of sex-education in Britain that has yet to introduce government sponsored abstinence education. Over the previous ten years of Labour rule, the government has committed itself to greater and more comprehensive school programmes in which children and teenagers are taught how to engage in sexual activity and use various forms of contraception.
As Britain’s problems with unmarried sexual activity continues to grow, the government’s response has included permission for the abortifacient morning after pill to be distributed without a prescription.
Despite the government’s claim that the morning after pill would slow down the surgical abortion rate, Britain’s leading abortion provider, Marie Stopes International (MSI), recorded the highest number of abortion of its entire 32 year history. MSI admitted that the total of 5,992 abortions had been committed in their nine UK abortion facilities represents a rise of 13 per cent since January 2005.
The Family Education Trust produces videos, books and pamphlets that promote “responsible attitudes to marriage and family life” including information on marriage, divorce, sex education, teenage pregnancy, and children’s rights. One recent publication was titled, “Sex Education or Indoctrination? How ideology has triumphed over facts”.
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
UK Abortion Rates Continue to Climb Despite Increasing Emergency Contraception Use
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/sep/06091507.html
Visit the website of the Family Education Trust and order copies of “Why Save Sex?”:
https://www.2-in-2-1.co.uk/php-bin/jump.php?linkid=45&showservice=1