You may wish to write to Ms Muscardini and congratulate her for reminding Europeans of this harmful policy document (first published in 2010). I reproduce below her question in full.
The European regional office of the World Health Organisation recently published a document entitled ‘Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe’ to provide guidelines on how to teach sex education to children aged four and over. The document is unsuitable and dangerous for a number of reasons, first and foremost because it encourages young children to engage in morally and educationally questionable sexual behaviour. For example, it promotes child masturbation, ‘playing doctor’ at the age of four as a way of discovering one’s own body and those of others, and same-sex relations between children under six years of age. What is more, the document is geared entirely to promoting a gender‐based ideology, which is completely unscientific. Ultimately, the document portrays sexual life in a simplistic and materialistic way, which is nonsensical, because it subordinates emotional and relational experience to solely biological and anatomical notions learned during early childhood and overlooks the ethical dimension of not only sexual but all human activities.
1. The Commission is presumably aware of this document. What is its opinion on it?Ms Muscardini's email address is: cristiana.muscardini@europarl.europa.eu
2. Is it aware that the document is actually the English translation of a German booklet entitled ‘Love, Body and Playing Doctor’, which was withdrawn by the German Ministry for Family Affairs in response to strong and wholly legitimate criticism from German Catholics, but which is now being put forward again under a different title?
3. Does it not agree that initiatives of this kind give people a false idea of European culture, which is already weak and in decline?
4. How does the Commission intend to counter this kind of approach to childhood education, which is unsuitable and detrimental to the development of a more holistic approach based on a less pragmatic world view which looks at life from a broader perspective, allowing room for spiritual and emotional considerations as well?
On page 16, Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe tells us that it is building on the work of It's all One Curriculum, sex education guidelines published by the Population Council and International Planned Parenthood Federation in 2009 funded, amongst others, by the UK's Department for International Development. I wrote about this document two years ago and pointed out that it:
- Tars heterosexual marriage with the brush of suspicion, whereas homosexual marriage is lauded as great social progress.
- Contains a thinly-veiled warning to teachers not to obstruct children's so-called sexual rights or children's access to secret abortions without parental knowledge or consent.
- Presents self-abuse as a human right.
Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
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