A
Manifesto for Marriage in Sex Education
©
The Christian Institute March 2001
Contents
Introduction
Give
parents a real voice
Keep
schools & parents in control
Teach
marriage as the surest foundation for raising children
Teach
children that sex is for adults
Protect
children's innocence
Appendix:
The success of abstinence education
Comparing
approaches - sex and smoking
Case
studies
References
Introduction
The
ambition of the overwhelming majority of parents is that their children
will grow up, get a good job, and settle down to have a family of
their own.
Many
parents worry about the sexual pressures on young people today.
They are concerned about their children making bad decisions in
relationships. What parent of a teenage girl has not worried about
their daughter getting pregnant?
Parents
feel very strongly about these issues. They want schools to support
their family values.
Sex
education, if it is done badly, has the potential to provoke a great
deal of parental concern. This has been seen recently in the debates
over the repeal of Section 28.
Probably
even Scottish Ministers accept that many mistakes were made in the
way the Executive went about repeal. Now the Executive is launching
a major re-vamp of sex education.
The
textbooks that the Executive has chosen to recommend are very disappointing.
Of
all the things that could have been chosen, the Executive has selected
some of the most controversial English sex education resources currently
available. Many parents will be shocked at what teachers are expected
to teach under the Executive's scheme.
As
the Executive prepares to launch its statutory guidance on sex education
in April 2001, we are launching our manifesto for marriage.
We
set out five positive principles for sex education which we would
like to see adopted by all Scottish schools. We believe the vast
majority of Scottish parents would agree with them.
Top
Give
parents a real voice
The
Executive promised that schools would consult with parents, yet
their draft guidance for sex education makes this optional for schools.
Schools
must be required to involve parents at every stage. In such a sensitive
area as sex education parents surely have a right to this, and in
particular to view sex education materials before they are used
with their children.
Schools
and education authorities should be accountable. Their sex education
policies should be made public.
It
is insensitive sex education which leads parents to want to withdraw
their children. If this happens, then it is the parent's right to
withdraw. This right should not be infringed by schools putting
pressure on parents to back down.
The
overwhelming majority of parents were completely unaware of the
Executive's own consultation on sex education in the Autumn of 2000.
Keeping parents out of sex education needs to change. It is time
to give parents a real voice.
Top
Keep
schools and parents in control
Teachers
understand their pupils. Sex education in most Scottish schools
is not extreme. Let's keep it that way.
The
problems often come from outside the school: outside groups which
take lessons in schools, over-zealous health board officials or
politically correct education authorities.
It
is essential that teachers and parents retain control over sex education.
There should be clear procedures to ensure this.
Parents
are worried that there are many outside groups which use inappropriate
materials and are hostile to family values. The Executive's new
national programme for sex education called "Healthy Respect"
includes organisations which promote very explicit sex education.
The Executive should think again. Sex education will not be helped
by making it more explicit and imposing political correctness.
Schools
and parents should be left in control.
Top
Teach
marriage as the surest foundation for raising children
It
is time for the Executive to upgrade the importance of marriage
in its plans for sex education.
The
only word that the Executive don't want to use in sex education
is marriage. Their proposed guidance for sex education relegates
marriage to an appendix.
Marriage
is the norm in Scotland. Almost 70% (1) of Scottish
children live with two married parents. Most marriages still last
for life. Most young people want to grow up to get married themselves.
It is right to hold out this ideal to children.
The
Westminster Government has stated that marriage is "the
surest foundation for raising children". (2)
The evidence clearly supports this. Young people should be told
the truth about marriage.
Some
of those involved with sex education appear to resent this. The
Grampian Health Board states that: "Resources which advocate
monogamy/marriage as a solution to HIV should be avoided at all
cost!" (3) Yet monogamy is precisely what
the World Health Organisation has said is a sure way to prevent
the spread of HIV.(4) Equally worrying is a leading
teachers' guide for sex education from Strathclyde University which
suggests that marriage should be introduced at Secondary 3 (13/14
year olds). (5)
Sex
education should support family values and not undermine the home.
When
it comes to sex, Scots still support family values. According to
the largest national study, 85% of Scottish men view adultery as
wrong and 70% view homosexual sex as wrong. (6)
As Professor A H Halsey, (Professor of Social Policy at Nuffield
College, Oxford) and co-author of English Ethical Socialism states:
"No one can deny that divorce, separation, birth outside marriage
and one-parent families as well as cohabitation and extra-marital
sexual intercourse have increased rapidly. Many applaud these freedoms.
But what should be universally acknowledged is that the children
of parents who do not follow the traditional norm (i.e. taking on
personal, active and long-term responsibility for the social upbringing
of the children they generate) are thereby disadvantaged in many
major aspects of their chances of living a successful life. On the
evidence available such children tend to die earlier, to have more
illness, to do less well at school, to exist at a lower level of
nutrition, comfort and conviviality, to suffer more unemployment,
to be more prone to deviance and crime, and finally to repeat the
cycle of unstable parenting from which they themselves have suffered...
The evidence all points in the same direction, is formidable, and
tallies with common sense." (7)
Top
Teach
children that sex is for adults
Most
school children who receive sex education are below the legal age
of consent. Schools should not encourage children to become sexually
active, especially when they would be committing a criminal offence
if they did so.
Sex
is special. It involves a degree of commitment and intimacy which
is entirely wrong for children to engage in. It may also result
in damaging sexually transmitted diseases, or in pregnancy. Children
cannot cope with these things. They should be taught what the real
risks are.
The
Executive's approach appears to assume that most pupils are sexually
active, when in fact only a minority are. This leads to sex education
for the one-night stand. Sex education should not take place in
a moral vacuum where children are taught that anything goes. They
should be taught how to say 'no' to sex and taught the benefits
of waiting. In the USA, this approach, known as abstinence education,
has seen the rates of teenage sexual activity fall dramatically.
Christian
teaching is that sex is for marriage. You may or may not agree but
you do not have to be a Christian to believe that sex is for adults,
not for children.
When
it comes to deciding how to teach about sex in schools, we must
be prepared to look at what works.
Current
rates of teen promiscuity, pregnancy, abortion and STDs are serious
matters. All are agreed on that.
The
evidence is that the current philosophy of ever more explicit sex
education at ever younger ages clearly does not work.
Whenever
there are calls for more sex education, the claim is made that it
will reduce teenage pregnancy abortion and STDs. The fact is that
in the UK, over the last 25 years sex education has increased while
levels of teenage pregnancy have been fairly constant. In the fifteen
years to 1998, abortions amongst 16 -19 year old girls in Scotland
have actually increased by 58%. (8) The Executive
states that in Scotland in the last 5 years alone diagnoses of one
STD, chlamydia, have risen by 75 per cent. (9)
The
age of consent is fixed at 16. The law says that sex is for adults,
not children. But the Executive has adopted a 'harm reduction' approach
which tells under age school children how to have sex more safely.
A
thoughtful editorial in The Herald made another suggestion:
'Although
sex education guidelines for children and young people place emphasis
on the value of stable family life (including the responsibilities
of parenthood and marriage) there is perhaps a case for the importance
of self-respect, encouraging youngsters to say no to sex,
being stressed.' (10)
Schools
should promote sexual abstinence. They should teach young people
to say no to sex. The Executive should take a look at abstinence
approaches which are working well in the United States (See
Appendix).
Top
Protect
children's innocence
It's
time for modesty in sex education. Parents fear that certain approaches
to sex education take away children's innocence. Children do not
have to be presented with a smorgasbord of sexual activities in
order to be prepared for adulthood. They need to be taught modesty,
morality and self-restraint.
The
Prime Minister and Wendy Alexander promised there would be no gay
sex lessons in Scottish schools. But some of the Executive's key
advisers provide websites which show gay erotica or produce materials
which would offend many parents. Many people are concerned about
why such groups are involved in the Executive's 'Healthy Respect'
programme.
Pornography
has no place in sex education. Groups which peddle it should be
kept out of schools.
Just
because some materials are produced by a Health Board is no reason
to believe they are suitable for schools. In England and Wales schools
have been given new legal powers to ban inappropriate National Health
Service materials from their classrooms. The law requires school
governors to consider whether NHS materials are appropriate. No
such duty is placed on schools in Scotland. Many headteachers are
under the mistaken belief that they should use any materials supplied
by health boards.
Top
Appendix:
The success of abstinence education
The
change of approach in the USA began in earnest in the late 1980s
with programmes such as Project Reality in Chicago which presented
to young people positive reasons for abstaining from sex. (11)
So
popular have abstinence programmes become that in 1996 President
Clinton signed into law the 1996 Welfare Reform Act which legally
defined 'abstinence education' as a programme which "has as
its exclusive purpose, teaching the social, psychological, and health
gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity" and
"teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as
the expected standard for all school age children". The Act
allocated at least £34 million a year to support abstinence
education. (12)
Additional
funding from state sources takes the total up to at least £65
million a year. Funding for safer-sex programmes is now less than
a third of this amount. (13)
The
US government's "National Strategy to Prevent Teen Pregnancy"
is the responsibility of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Under the Clinton administration the official policy was that "Abstinence
and personal responsibility must be the primary messages of prevention
programs." (14)
The
popularity of abstinence programmes has already reached the point
where, in sex education, some 23% of secondary school teachers in
the USA only teach abstinence education. (15)
There are many other teachers who teach "abstinence plus"
which promotes sex as being intended for marriage, but also covers
contraception.
The
US teen pregnancy rate has been falling steadily since 1991. In
August 2000, the US Government announced that birth rates for teenage
girls continued to decline, dropping to 49.6 per 1,000 girls aged
15-19 per year. This is the lowest rate since recording began sixty
years ago. (16)
The
1999-2000 Annual Report of the National Strategy to Prevent Teen
Pregnancy, reported: "Trends throughout the 1990s have shown
a steady reduction in teen birth rates that is now significant for
all 50 states. Rates have declined for all adolescent age groups,
for all racial and ethnic groups, and for both first and second
births to teens. Clearly we are reaping the benefits of this Administration's
strong commitment to our National Strategy and renewed efforts by
states, localities, private organizations, parents, and youth."
(17)
Abstinence-based
sex education has not just reduced the teenage illegitimacy rate.
Between 1991 and 1999 the prevalence of sexual experience among
adolescents decreased by 8%. (18)
A
1999 report from the Consortium of State Physicians Resource Councils
found:
"The evidence points to sexual abstinence, not increased contraceptive
use, as the primary reason for the decline in teen pregnancy and
birth rates throughout the 1990s. It appears possible that programs
aimed at producing abstinent behaviour have been more successful
than programs aimed at increasing safer-sex practices in reducing
unintended births to adolescents. Douglas Kirby, a noted sex education
researcher, was prophetic in 1991 when he noted that 'it may actually
be easier to delay the onset of intercourse than to increase contraceptive
practice." (19)
Hillary
Rodham Clinton, despite her liberal credentials, preaches the abstinence
message:
"After many years of working with and listening to American
adolescents, I don't believe they are ready for sex or its potential
consequences - parenthood, abortion, sexually transmitted diseases
- and I think we need to do everything in our power to discourage
sexual activity and encourage abstinence". (20)
Here
in the UK, researchers have begun to consider the importance of
developing school sex education programmes that will lead to a decrease
in sexual activity. (21) Delaying first sexual
intercourse and reducing sexual activity is now considered a worthwhile
thing to do.
Clearly
it is possible for young people to embrace an abstinence message,
even if they have been sexually active in the past. The BMJ has
recently reprinted one of the major US reference books on contraception
that endorses abstinence in the following way:
"Secondary
abstinence, or celibacy, is the choice of many sexually experienced
adolescents and adults. It is not an extremist position in the age
of viral sexually transmitted infections." (22)
Top
Comparing
approaches - sex and smoking
The Executive's approach to sex education is in stark contrast to
its approach to smoking. The Executive wants youngsters to stop.
The White Paper on Health has targets to reduce smoking by 12-15
year olds from 14% to 11% by 2010. (23)
Whilst
cigarettes are very unhealthy and prolonged use results in many
serious and often fatal illnesses, no one would ever argue that
such consequences could follow from a single act of smoking. However,
a single act of sexual intercourse can result in a young person
contracting a serious, even fatal, disease.
The
strong impression is given smokers can be helped to overcome addictions,
but that teenagers can not be expected to control their sexual desires.
Figures
from The Health Education Board for Scotland (24)
suggest that in 1998 one third of 15 year olds will have had sex,
up from one quarter in 1990. Between 1990 and 1994 the number of
sexually experienced 15 year olds rose from 26% to 37%. (25)
Scottish
Health Ministers want to cut the teenage pregnancy rate. Surely
it is time to encourage young people to say no to underage sex,
just as we encourage them to say no to smoking?
Top
Case
Studies
Tennessee
Of the ten largest counties in Tennessee, research indicates that
teenage pregnancies in the three that taught 'abstinence-only' in
schools declined between 14 and 38 percent from 1991 to 1996. By
comparison, the four counties that taught safer-sex education (or
had no county-wide sex education) experienced a maximum decline
of only 7 percent. (26)
Washington
D.C.
An abstinence programme called Best Friends was instituted in inner-city
Washington D.C. schools in 1987. A doctoral dissertation evaluation
of this programme found that by graduation from high school (age
18) only 22% of Best Friends girls reported having sexual intercourse.
(27) In comparison, 76% of Washington D.C. high
school girls were sexually active overall. (28)
None
of the safer-sex education programmes have been able to record an
appreciable, consistent drop in teen pregnancy rates, regardless
of how intensively they have been implemented and studied in a specific
school system. (29)
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References
1.
Table extracted by the Central Research Unit, The Scottish Executive
from the Scottish Household Survey, 1999
2. Supporting Families - A Consultation Document,
Home Office, 1998, page 4, para 8
3. HIV & Sexual Health, Grampian Health Promotions,
Grampian Health Board, undated, Page 55
4. "You are safest of all if you do not have
sexual intercourse. You are also safe if you in a stable relationship
where both you and your partner are free of HIV and neither of you
has other sexual partners." How does HIV effect (sic) me? Joint
United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, www.unaids.org/hivaidsinfo/faq/effect.html
as at 13 March 2001
5. Personal Relationships and Developing Sexuality:
Book 3 Curricular Framework, University of Strathclyde, Faculty
of Education 1994, page 44
6. Johnson A et al Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles,
Blackwell Scientific, 1994, pages 471, 475
7. Halsey A H Quoted in Dennis N & Erdos G Families
without Fatherhood, IEA, 1993, page xii
8. Teenage Pregnancy in Scotland - A Fifteen Year
Review 1983-1997, July 1998, Information and Statistics Division,
Common Services Agency, Scottish Health Service, p10; and Teenage
Pregnancy in Scotland 1989-1998, June 1999, Information and Statistics
Division, Common Services Agency, Scottish Health Service, p7
9. Press Release: SE2920/2000, Deacon launches 'Healthy
Respect' - £3 million project to work to improve teenage sexual
health, 13 November 2000
10. The Herald, 14 November 2000
11. Sexual Health Update, Winter 1998, Volume 6,
Number 3, Medical Institute for Sexual Health, page 2
12. The 1996 Welfare Reform Act, section 912 which
amends Title V of the Social Security Act, Section 510 (b) (2) (A)
and (B). This can be viewed at http://www.projectreality.org/law.html
as at 14 March 2001. See also A National Strategy to Prevent Teen
Pregnancy Annual Report 1999-2000, Department of Health and Human
Services, can be viewed at http://www.aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/teenp/ann-rpt00/
as at 17 January 2001
13. The Daily Telegraph, 29 December 2000
14. A National Strategy to Prevent Teen Pregnancy
Annual Report 1999-2000, Department of Health and Human Services,
can be viewed at http://www.aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/teenp/ann-rpt00/ as
at 12 March 2001
15. The Daily Telegraph, 29 December 2000
16. Loc cit and see Press Release New CDC Birth
Report Shows Teen Birth Rates Continue to Drop 8 August 2000, National
Centre for Health Statistics, U.S. Department for Health and Human
Services. Available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/releases/00news/newbirth.htm
as at 4 December 2000
17. A National Strategy to Prevent Teen Pregnancy
Annual Report 1999-2000, Department of Health and Human Services,
can be viewed at http://www.aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/teenp/ann-rpt00/ as
at 12 March 2001
18. MacKay AP, et al, Adolescent Health Chartbook,
Health, United States, 2000. National Center for Health Statistics,
2000, p74
19. Jones, J M et al, The Declines in Adolescent
Pregnancy, Birth and Abortion Rates in the 1990s: What Factors Are
Responsible? A special report commissioned by The Consortium of
State Physicians Resource Councils, 7 January 1999, page 8
20. Clinton, H R It Takes a Village, Simon and
Schuster, 1996, page 161
21. Mellanby A R et al, School sex education: an
experimental programme with educational and medical benefit, BMJ
1995; 311:414-417 (12 August)
22. 'Abstinence and the Range of Sexual Expression',
Kowal, D in Contraceptive Technology Ed. Hatcher R A et al, BMJ,
Seventeenth Revised Edition, page 297
23. See Scottish Executive Press Release SE 1605/1999
and Towards a Healthier Scotland - A White Paper on Health, The
Scottish Office, February 1999, Chapter 4
24. Teenage Sexuality in Scotland, HEBS Research
Centre, Health Education Board for Scotland, 2000. Available from
http://www.hebs.scot.nhs.uk as at 6 December 2000
25. See Press Release Love is all around 1 December
1997 Health Education Board for Scotland available from www.hebs.scot.nhs.uk/news/loveall.htm
as at 6 December 2000
26. Aseltine, G 'Research on Teen Pregnancies,'
Behavioural Sciences Research Associates, 1998, quoted in The Declines
in Adolescent Pregnancy, Birth and Abortion Rates in the 1990s:
What factors are responsible? Jones J M et al, The Consortium of
State Physicians Resource Councils, January 1999, page 7
27. Rowberry, D R (1995) An Evaluation of the Washington
DC, Best Friends Program, Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University
of Colorado, Boulder, quoted in Sexual Health Update, Winter 1998,
Volume 6, Number 3, Medical Institute for Sexual Health
28. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(1996, September 27). Youth Risk Behaviour Surveillance - United
States, 1995. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 45(SS-4), 1-83,
quoted in Sexual Health Update, Winter 1998, Volume 6, Number 3,
Medical Institute for Sexual Health
29. UNAIDS (1997, October) Impact of HIV and Sexual
Health Education on the Sexual Behaviour of Young People: A Review
Update, quoted in Sexual Health Update, Winter 1998, Volume 6, Number
3, Medical Institute for Sexual Health
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