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Email: information@spuc.org.uk
Petition against the promotion of secret abortions in schools
March 2009
SPUC is urging the British prime minister to stop schools from being used to give access to abortion. The preamble to the society's petition to Mr Gordon Brown points out that the government is establishing school-based health and sex clinics in all secondary schools. It is also giving school nurses and advisors (such as Connexions 'personal advisors') a remit to promote access to abortion amongst schoolchildren without informing parents.
SPUC issued a media release about the campaign on 23 February and has also published a leaflet which describes how the Sex Education Forum is urging ministers to establish a sex clinic in every school and sixth form college. A third of secondary schools in England already have one.
Although people think that giving contraceptives to teenagers should stop them getting pregnant, this is not the case. Recent research found that areas which provided greater access to contraceptive services tended to had bigger increases in teenage pregnancies. Figures for 2007, the latest available, show the highest rate ever of under-18 abortions.
School nurses are said to "support young women to access services to make timely choices about emergency contraception, pregnancy or abortion." They keep all their dealings with school children secret because "young people have the same right to confidentiality as adults." The Teenage Pregnancy Unit, which is part of the Department for Children Families and Schools, issued a report last year saying that sex and relationships education should: "Make explicit links to young people's advisory services and provision of ... sexual health services and demonstrate this by teaching young people how to access services." Sexual health services means abortion and contraceptive services.
Connexions, the government's principal young people's advisory service, promotes helplines and organisations offering contraception and abortion to under-16s. Connexions staff are guided to work within a "confidentiality framework" so that no information has to be given to parents and staff are advised that they "need to be independent of teachers".
The petition is here and you can get printed petitions and more information by emailing political@spuc.org.uk.
