SPUC condemns call for compulsory sex education in primary school

Westminster, 24 September 2003--The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has condemned the call by the Liberal Democrat party for children as young as seven to be subjected to compulsory sex education.

John Smeaton, SPUC national director, said: "This is a deplorable attack on parents, who should have responsibility for educating their children in human sexuality and who are the appropriate judges of what age their children should be protected from sexually explicit material.

"Decades of what amounts to pro-abortion and anti-abstinence sex education has not only failed to produce sexually responsible adults, but has gone hand-in-hand with a spiralling rise in sexually-transmitted diseases, teenage pregnancies and registered abortions. Furthermore, education about so-called 'contraception' would almost certainly mean indoctrination about abortion-inducing birth control such as the morning-after pill.

"It is a politically stupid thing for the Liberal Democrats not only to be copying New Labour's failed policies in this area, but adopting an even more extreme version of them."