News,

SPUC is urging the British prime minister to stop schools from being used to give access to abortion. The preamble to SPUC'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 clear remit to promote access to abortion amongst schoolchildren without informing parents. The main message of the petition is: "We the undersigned call upon the Prime Minister to stop schools being used to promote or facilitate abortion." John Smeaton, SPUC's national director, said: "Abortion is always a tragedy, and it is a travesty of parental responsibility to have schools confidentially referring for abortion. It means that education institutions come between pupils and their families." [SPUC, 23 February]

British government advice reportedly tells parents not to say to their teenage children that having sex is wrong. Ms Beverley Hughes MP, children's minister, says parents should advocate birth control to their sons and daughters, and the government explained that that included 13-year-olds (who are under the age of consent). Such advice is predicted to be in Talking to your Teenager About Sex and Relationships, a pamphlet available from pharmacists from Thursday-week (5 March). Dr Patricia Morgan, the sociologist, says young people do heed their parents when they say they disapprove of underage sex. [Mail, 23 February] John Smeaton of SPUC said: "The government's teenage pregnancy strategy is failing yet here we have ministers telling parents to give value-free sex education and even to go with their under-age daughters to the GP's surgery to get birth control."

The Pope has warned of the dangers of eugenics, including the use of genetics-based techniques to select people for their strength or good looks. Benedict XVI told the Pontifical Academy for Life's assembly in Rome that genetics had contributed much to science. It enabled the detection of illnesses and could contribute to the development of therapies for them. There was, however, a danger of regarding people merely in terms of their genetic code and their function in society. Man was more than just a body. The Pope said: "It is necessary to reemphasize that every discrimination exercised by any power in regard to persons, peoples or ethnic groups on the basis of differences that stem from real or presumed genetic factors is an act of violence against all of humanity." [Zenit, 22 February]

To subscribe to SPUC's email information services, please visit www.spuc.org.uk/em-signup. The reliability of the news herein is dependent on that of the cited sources, which are paraphrased rather than quoted. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the society. © Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, 2018