Sex education: a failed policy

Dr ES Williams – MB BCh, FFPHM,

There is now a crisis in the sexual health of young people.  A leading expert on sexual behaviour, Professor Kaye Wellings, commented on the marked change in attitudes to sex – especially among young women – that has occurred in the last decade. ‘Women now have twice as many sexual partners as they did 10 years ago.  Back in 1990, women were quite censorious about one-night stands.  That is not the case now.  And people are reporting more sexual activity, having more sexual partners and having sex earlier than in the past.  We are seeing an explosion of sexual life.’

 Coinciding with the increase in casual sex has been an explosion in the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among young people.  In the last seven years the number of young women infected with chlamydia has trebled, and the numbers infected with gonorrhoea and genital herpes have doubled.  

More young women, and even under-age girls, are using contraception than ever before. Among girls under 16 (the age of sexual consent) there has been a tenfold increase in the use of contraceptives over the last two decades.  Recent figures in the NHS contraceptive bulletin 2002-03 show that around 85 thousand under-age girls are recruited into contraception each year.  The sheer scale of the contraception mentality is illustrated by the fact that in 2002 about 52 thousand girls aged 15 (17% of 15-year-olds) attended family planning clinics. And if that were not bad enough, in the same year nearly 27 thousand prescriptions for the ‘morning-after pill’ (now available from supermarkets and local pharmacies without a doctor’s prescription) were issued to under 16s.

 The historical context

This depressing picture needs to be put into context.  Three decades ago, in an effort to deal with the problems of unintended teenage pregnancy and abortion, the British Government took the controversial decision not only to supply contraception, free of charge, to children on the NHS, but also allow doctors to prescribe contraceptives to under-age children without the knowledge or consent of their parents.  And so under the Reorganisation of the NHS Act, which came into force in April 1974, a child of 12, 13 or 14 could go to a family planning clinic, drop-in centre or Brook clinic to receive a supply of contraceptives without their parents being aware of the fact.

In 1976 the Family Planning Association (FPA) set targets to reduce by half the number of unintended teenage pregnancies and abortions within a decade by improving sex education and the availability of contraceptives. In 1986 the FPA was able to boast that its information service had distributed over 50 million items of sex education literature over the previous decade. Yet despite a substantial increase in contraceptive usage, the rate of teenage pregnancies had doubled and the number of abortions had risen substantially. The reason for this apparent contradiction is that most teenage pregnancies are a result of contraceptive failure. Increasing the availability of contraception simply recruits more children into promiscuous sex, and the more the sexual activity among under-age children the greater the number of sexual tragedies. This is why the Government is now pushing emergency contraception so hard.   

 In 1986, in response to the AIDS threat, the Government launched a national campaign to encourage young people to practise ‘safe sex’. Large sums of public money were put into sex education, the vehicle used to deliver the ‘safer sex’ message to schoolchildren.  In 1992 a parliamentary statutory order made it compulsory for secondary schoolchildren to be taught how to protect themselves against AIDS.

 In July 2000 the Government, recognising that the UK had the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in Western Europe, issued its Sex and Relationship Education Guidance to all schools and health authorities in England. According to the guidance, teaching children about contraception is at the heart of sex education. ‘Knowledge of the different types of contraception, and of access to, and availability of contraception is a major part of the Government’s strategy to reduce teenage pregnancy.’  It follows that ‘trained staff in secondary schools should be able to give young people full information about different types of contraception, including emergency contraception and their effectiveness… Trained teachers can also give pupils – individually and as a class – additional information and guidance on where they can obtain confidential advice, counselling and, where necessary, treatment.’ (Note, ‘treatment’ is a euphemism for contraception).  This means that children are taught how to use contraception and emergency contraception, and teachers can give children confidential advice about where to obtain contraception.  According to the guidance, ‘young people need to know not just what safer sex is and why it is important but also how to negotiate it with a partner’. The ability to negotiate ‘safer sex’ is an important skill that sex education hopes to impart to teenagers.

 Another component of school sex education is that it helps ‘children and young people develop confidence in talking, listening and thinking about sex and relationships’. The sex education pamphlet, Sexual health matters for young women, produced by the Government-funded Health Education Authority, encourages teenagers to ‘talk condoms before it’s too late.  If you discuss protection with your partner early on it will be easier to agree on safer sex.’

 The ideology of sex education

There is little doubt that sex education has failed to achieve its objectives of reducing teenage pregnancies, abortions and STDs.  To understand why sex education has failed, we need to understand its underlying ideology.  There is a vast array of sex education pamphlets, leaflets, booklets, videos, filmstrips etc, produced by the FPA, Brook and the Health Education Authority (now renamed the Health Development Agency) directed at children and young people. The essential message is to invite teenagers to make an ‘informed choice’ about their sexual behaviour free from any moral consideration.  Sexual health matters for young women explains ‘whether or not you have sex can be a difficult decision to make.  But in the end it’s what’s right for you, and only you can answer that.  If you’ve decided you’re not ready for sex, then fine. Remember, it’s your body, your choice and your right to say no.  Only have sex because you want to.’  The booklet Lovelife (Health Education Authority) puts it like this: ‘It can be hard to decide if you should have sex or not.  But in the end it’s what’s right for you, and only you can answer that.’ A teenager is offered the choice of whether or not to have sex, and her decision depends on what she wants, on her sexual desires, on how she feels at that moment in time, and not on any objective standard of right and wrong.  The inference is that whatever she chooses is right for her. So the message is, when it comes to sexual behaviour, young people should do what they want.  Numerous other examples could be quoted, all with the same underlying message—do what you want.  Note the similarity between the ideology of sex education and the pagan creed: ‘Do what you will, as long as it harms none’; and ‘avoid a list of thou-shalt-nots’.

 It is not difficult to see that the message of sex education is fundamentally amoral. It does not recognise the concept of sexual immorality, and no form of sexual behaviour is condemned as wrong.  Sex education literature, therefore, does not condemn promiscuity or homosexuality; to do so would be judgemental.  So children are taught about sex in an amoral framework. To emphasise this point the Government’s Social Exclusion Unit warns that it is a mistake to drift into ‘moralising’ when teaching children about sex.

 The Christian response

There is confusion among Christians as to the right way to respond to the crisis in sexual health among young people.  Many are content to accept the view that children need sex education—the challenge is to find a ‘Christian’ version.  Few are prepared to condemn sex education as amoral and anti-Christian.  Yet my study of the sex education movement shows how it has developed from the ideas of the sexual revolutionaries such as Marie Stopes, Margaret Sanger and Alfred Kinsey. Its unwritten agenda is to oppose biblical morality and undermine marriage and the family. As a matter of policy sex education usually teaches about sex without mentioning marriage. 

 So how should the Church respond?  We are commanded to ‘have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them’ (Ephesians 5:11).  We can no longer avoid the issue, too many young lives are being destroyed.  We fail in our prophetic ministry to the nation if we simply tolerate the amoral ideology of sex education. In our struggle against the powers of this dark world we must, first, expose the fruitless deeds of sex education, and second, teach God’s standard of sexual conduct as found in the Bible.

 As the light of the world, as Christ’s ambassadors, we must witness to the biblical virtues of modesty, chivalry, chastity and fidelity that God’s word has placed around human sexual behaviour, and teach them to our children. While each virtue applies to an aspect of sexual behaviour, together they form a coherent inner belief system that witnesses to God’s holiness, that sets a standard of conduct that gives meaning and purpose to marriage and the family.  Because human beings are created in the image of God, God’s standard for sexual conduct has a powerful appeal to the human heart. Let us, then, teach the value of modesty, the virtue that enhances the inner beauty of women.  Let us teach the importance of chivalry, the virtue that teaches men to relate to women with honour and respect, that encourages men to practise self-control.  Let us teach chastity, the virtue based in the desire for sexual purity, the desire to reserve sex for marriage.  Let us teach fidelity, the virtue that safeguards marriage and the family.  Let us make it known from the rooftops and the pulpits across the land that our God, in his great wisdom, has instituted moral laws around human sexual conduct that preserve marriage, secure the family and protect children.