'All children will get lessons on how to say “no” to sex under reforms proposed yesterday by David Cameron to mend Britain’s “broken society.” He said school curriculums should include teaching about sexual consent – with an emphasis on “empowering” youngsters to refuse.' (Daily Express, 18 Jan 2010)

The Conservative Party has today published its draft education manifesto. We plan on commenting on this tomorrow, but the above story is interesting not least because there is no record of the party's leader making any such proposals yesterday. What he actually wrote in the Mail on Sunday about schools was the following:

'We will also reform our schools. Unless children learn the difference between right and wrong, they will never develop the responsible character that is vital to a strong society. Yet today, truancy and violent behaviour are all too common in our schools. Turning this around won't happen overnight - it needs long-term change.

'Yes, that means allowing those who know how to give children the best the chance to set up new schools.

'But we also need immediate action to restore the authority of head teachers. Allowing them to search for weapons and drugs. And letting them draw up binding home-school contracts, setting out the behaviour expected from pupils. We must also give schools the final say on exclusions.'

As I say, we'll be commenting on some of this tomorrow, particularly the proposals to allow charities, parent and teacher groups, and others to set up new schools. However, the language of 'empowering' young people to say 'no' to sex in fact comes from an email sent by one of his aides following a speech he gave in November 2007 on the need to end sexual violence against women: 'We will therefore make the teaching of sexual consent a compulsory part of the sex education curriculum, empowering young people to say "no" to sex.'

If as part of his commitment to building a society in which 'if you take responsibility you’ll be rewarded' Mr Cameron does indeed intend to maintain his commitment to empowering young people to pursue sexual abstinence as a more fulfilling lifestyle choice, one might also hope that he will also empower parents to take more responsibility in this area – specifically, when it comes to access to pregnancy services.

In recent years, children’s rights have been promoted at the expense of parental responsibility in a whole range of areas, not just the sexual healthcare of underage young people. Yet you might have thought that teaching young people about consent, that 'no' means 'no', would fit with the whole anti-bullying agenda. You might have thought that involving parents would strike chords with promoting the human rights of parents in the area of educating their children. Above all, at a time when Britain has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in Europe and soaring rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), you might have thought greater interest would have been paid by the government to the overwhelming body of evidence† showing that parental involvement results in significant decreases in overall teenage conception rates, underage abortion rates, and rates of teenage STIs – even when only parental notification, rather than consent, is made mandatory.

Sadly, as Dale Kuehne observes, the iWorld in which we live has no room for such considerations, for freedom of individual choice is the highest ideal. In contrast, the rWorld would insist that parents are responsible for raising their children 'in the training and instruction of the Lord' – that is, in a way that empowers them to love God and to love others as themselves.

† See, for instance:
Paton, D. (2009) Exploring the evidence on strategies to reduce teenage pregnancy rates. Nursing Times; 105:42, 22-25.
Klick, J. & Stratmann, T. (2008) Abortion access and risky sex among teens: parental involvement laws and sexually transmitted diseases. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 24, 2-21
Joyce, T. et al (2006) Changes in abortions and births and the Texas Parental Notification Law. New England Journal of Medicine 354:10, 1031-38
Levine, P. (2003) Parental involvement laws and fertility behavior. Journal of Health Economics 22, 861-78

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