Abstinence Sex Education plans - Keep your Your Laws off My Body

In late May The Life organisation, an anti-abortion body that wants a new abstinence based Sex-education program in the UK, was invited to join a new sexual health forum set up to replace the Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health while on the other hand the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) was taken out of the forum.

Personally I believe that Abstinence is a matter of personal choice based on personal beliefs (religious or non) and morals, not a political matter."The government cannot force religious views upon the nation- we need Laïcité" says Jasmine Weyth, Rhul Feminism Society Chair . One person commented on the Online Guardian article that reported this saying: "I wonder how long it will be before they outlaw abortions. Y'know, without consulting the public first.". And its only been few months later that this has started to emerge and changes to the abortion law are being made, attempting to split women up into pro-choice and pro-life. When we should be reuniting against all the governments sex-discriminative planes. Another comment from Jasmine: "shocking how many people value unborn collections of cells more than the rights of women to control their own bodies and lives.".

People in power need to realise that with or without Abstinence sex ed, teenagers will still catch STIs and STDs. It hasn't stopped them spreading in religious 3rd world countries. Don’t they think that teaching teenagers how: to have sex safety when the time comes when they are legally and personally ready for it; teach them about rape; how to protect themselves; where to go for help and what choices and rights they have over their body, may be a bit more useful? Or Would they really rather live in illusionary state where they think their child will always remain a child in terms of innocence and sexual ignorance till they’re married (assuming they want get married), have these people not watched Skins? - not in reference to the teenage characters of the show but in relation to the adult authoritative presence whose main role is to educate them and teach to keep themselves safe and direct them to help when they need it.

Women are sexual beings too and some women want to be sexually active before marriage, this is their choice. But some choose to be sexually active and are under-educated when it comes to sexual health and some women are put in the position where they don’t have a choice and are abused – do they become “private issues” what what kind of services are in place for them and how accessible are they? How is replacing sex-eduction with abstinence eduction is going to address those issues? They cant honestly believe that teaching young girls to just say no is going to make any difference? The coalition need to concentrate of building a better government that promotes the enforcement of women's rights. How about not cutting services that help women: sexual advice services, domestic violence victim services, counselling...


Susuana Antubam