Pro-Life Action
PROTECTING PARENTS’ RIGHTS
– so that parents can protect their children F rom September 2020, all schools in England, including Catholic schools, must by law teach three new subjects: • Relationships Education in primary schools, • Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) in secondary schools, and • Health Education in all schools. Parents will not have the right to withdraw children from RSE or Health Education. They will still be able to withdraw them from sex education while they attend primary school but parents of children in secondary school will have to seek the permission of the headteacher. The introduction of these changes represents a serious attempt on the part of the state to control what children will learn about marriage, family and personal relationships. They will restrict the right of parents to raise their children in accordance with their own moral values. A child’s education in these matters should take place chiefly within the home rather than the classroom since it is parents and not the government who should decide what beliefs and values should be imparted to children. At the heart of these reforms is the state’s determination to ensure that same-sex “marriage” and homosexual activity is seen by children as healthy, normal and no different to real marriage. Unless parents resist these proposals before they are introduced then the situation will become progressively worse in the years to come. SPR I NG 2 0 1 9
In December 2017 the Department of Education opened a consultation which received more than 23,000 submissions. The response showed a groundswell of public support for real marriage between a man and a woman and significant opposition to the LGBT agenda and sex-education lobby. This forced officials to acknowledge the importance of the role of parents but major concerns over the implementation of the government’s plans still remain. These include: • Children in primary schools will be told that they must accept that families “sometimes look different from their family, but that they should respect those differences and know that other children’s families are characterised by love and care for them”. They must also understand that marriage, including same-sex “marriage” and civil partnerships, represent “a formal and legally recognised commitment of two people to each other which is intended to be lifelong”.
• In secondary schools, the RSE programme sets out a completely secular view of human sexuality. It presents high-risk unethical behaviour and lifestyles as equally valid as marriage. Abortion is portrayed simply as one of the available options during pregnancy. Pupils will be signposted to contraceptive and abortion services, without their parents even being informed. The right of parents to withdraw their children from the “sex education” parts of RSE, which the government had promised to retain, has been removed and replaced only by a right to request a withdrawal. The final decision will be taken by the headteacher. At the age of 15 pupils will be able to overrule the wishes of their parents. • Health education when taught in conjunction with RSE, shows that the government believes it has a role in every aspect of a child’s personal development even if that
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