British Pro-Life Advocates Celebrate Victory in Parliament on Pro-Abortion Sex Ed
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 6, 2010
London, England (LifeNews.com) — British pro-life advocates celebrated a victory today in Parliament as MPs agreed to delete clauses in the Personal, Social Health and Economic education (PSHE) in the Children, Schools and Families Bill. The British pro-life group SPUC had been actively opposing the provisions.
SPUC warned that the PSHE clauses in the bill would make sex and relationships education compulsory from 5 to 16 years.
It also worried government-backed resources for teaching primary school children would include some for Catholic and other private religious schools.
Now that Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called the May 6 election, the government has been forced to negotiate with opposition parties to get through some of their legislation on less controversial issues.
SPUC informed LifeNews.com today that the government minister responsible for the bill, Baroness Morgan, has now added her name to motions tabled by other MPs, which effectively remove the offensive clauses in the bill.
"This means that when the House of Lords passes the Children, Schools and Families Bill tomorrow evening, it will be minus the PSHE provisions. A huge pro-life victory," says John Smeaton of SPUC.
On the provisions, SPUC also warned that "secondary schools, including faith schools, would face pressure to link sex and relationships education to contraception and abortion services."
"The government’s advisers want confidential health clinics in all secondary schools so they can offer teenagers advice on contraception and abortion without their parents’ knowledge. SPUC warned that the impact of this would be to damage teenagers’ health, betray parents and destroy unborn lives," the group said beforehand.
Smeaton added about the victory: "Credit is due to all those who lobbied against a bill which SPUC has said would have been the biggest expansion of the culture of death through thousands of state schools in England – promoting abortion provision for children and simultaneously sounding the death knell for parents’ right and responsibilities to be the primary educators and protectors of their children."
"It seems that the Conservatives stood firm in their opposition to the sex and relationships education clauses in the bill, as did Lord Alton and Baroness O’Loan," he said.
Related web sites:
SPUC – https://www.spuc.org.uk
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