Tackling Abortion Misinformation on University Campus

We’ve been contacted by some UK students, concerned that an anti-abortion society has been formed on campus - and seems to have been officially recognised by the university. Here are some anti-choice arguments you might hear and why they need to be challenged… 

“Having an abortion involves killing a baby”

No. An abortion is a medical procedure, to intentionally end a pregnancy. In the UK, abortion is allowed up to 24 weeks of development. At this stage a fetus is unable to feel pain(1) or function and live outside of a womb(2). 

“Abortions are dangerous and harmful to pregnant people”

No. Legal abortions are very safe. Having an abortion provided by healthcare professionals is safer than giving birth(3). It is also safer than having your tonsils out(4), running a marathon(4) or even taking viagra(4). 

Meanwhile unsafe abortion (e.g. restricted access to legal, medically supervised care) is a leading cause of preventable deaths of pregnant people(4). 

“Allowing anti-abortion groups to form and carry out their activities on university campuses is an important part of free-speech and democracy”

No. Universities have a duty of care to their students and must ensure their resources are not used to harm them. Whilst everyone is entitled to hold private views on abortion and make decisions about their own bodies and healthcare, anti-choice groups do not exist to support these principles. Instead, they exist to promote stigma and fear around abortion care - as well as to spread misinformation that contradicts leading health authorities such as the WHO, that recognise that abortion care is a common and important part of reproductive healthcare(4).

“Being allowed to express anti-abortion views in public is an important part of religious freedom”

No. People of many faiths choose to have abortions(5). Having access to safe and legal abortions, without shame or fear, does not take away a person’s individual right to decide what is spiritually or ethically right for them. Promoting abortion stigma and misinformation however, does challenge this right. It can cause harm by making it harder for someone to seek abortion care. 

What can you do to challenge harmful anti-abortion views on campus? 

• Encourage accurate and stigma-free abortion discussion with those around you. You might like to share this blog, our mini-series on abortion(6) or projects that portray accurate experiences of abortion(7) to help do this. 

• Report any harm you or other students experience on campus from anti-choice groups - for example to NUS reps, university wellbeing and health services, or your course tutor. 

• Talk to any university groups who might want to help support - perhaps your university’s FemSoc or health education group might want to hold an event or take action around abortion rights. 

References: 

1. RCOG (https://bit.ly/389Rb3P)

2. RCOG (https://bit.ly/3LW14AD)

3. Raymond and Grimes, 2012 (https://bit.ly/389P93G)

4. W.H.O. (https://bit.ly/38UjX8B)

5. Guttmacher Institute (https://bit.ly/3Fm8c77)

6. schoolofsexed.org/blog-articles/2020/4/16

7. msichoices.org.uk/abortion/abortion-stories/

Our book ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’​ ​ is out​ ​now.

Our response to the Education Minister

At School of Sexuality Education, we are proud of our inclusive, comprehensive, and evidence-based approach to delivering Relationships and Sex Education. It is something we have always been transparent about and actively promoted. This includes sharing our work directly with parents and carers. We regularly take time to meet with them and not only show them our content, but talk through our approach to those interested in it. 

As such, we are baffled by the recent letters issued by the Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan. In these letters the Minister instructs schools and parents, (other carers and guardians of young people appear to be pointedly excluded in the address), on their rights to see teaching materials used by external providers who are delivering content around relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) within schools.  

We regularly deliver sessions specifically for parents and carers, as well as working with students within homeschools. We know parents and carers are important stakeholders in meeting children and young peoples’ needs. The Education Minister’s letters portray the relationship between parents and specialist RSHE providers as an adversarial one. Not only is this an unhelpful view, but it also does not accurately reflect our experiences. Most of the parents and carers who take the time to engage with us are pleased (relieved even) that someone is taking the time to start conversations with their children about subjects that they often find embarrassing and difficult to tackle. 

This is a sentiment often echoed by teaching staff. The current RSHE curriculum only became a mandatory subject in English schools in 2019 (with a grace period of a year granted due to the difficulties accompanying the pandemic). Since this time very little training, guidance or financial resources have been made available from the central government to support schools in implementing this change. This is especially shameful, considering how important high quality education in this area is to the wellbeing and secure development of young people.

Our organisation is made up of professionals with a range of backgrounds - including healthcare, education, safeguarding, academics and other specialisms. Expert RSE providers like ourselves exist precisely because of this failure to adequately support schools in meeting the RSHE needs of their students. Casting aspersions on the organisations which have come about to fill the gaps left by the government does nothing to improve education in this area. 

The Minister’s letters suggest that specialist RSHE providers like ourselves are secretive organisations. This simply isn’t accurate. Like many experts in the field, we are proud of the work that we do and strive to actively promote our approach. We’ve even written a book about it, Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships - widely available to anyone with a library card.

When RSHE appears in the headlines, we invariably see an increase in the number of parents and carers who contact us directly. Although as a small charity this can feel overwhelming in terms of our capacity, ultimately it is a chance to engage and include more people who largely want the same thing as us. 

Gillian Keegan ends her letter to parents encouraging them to read and respond to the upcoming RSHE review. We would seek and encourage all parents and carers interested in the wellbeing of young people to do the same - not just those who seek to politicise youth wellbeing with the aim of censoring evidence-based RSHE. 

School of Sexuality Education welcomes Tribunal decision

Our comment on ‘Clare Page vs Information Commissioner and School of Sexuality Education’ and preceding events, June 2023.

Following the delivery of one day of consent presentations at Haberdashers’ Hatcham College in September 2021, School of Sexuality Education became involved in a tribunal case relating to our intellectual property. On June 6th 2023 the case was dismissed at tribunal.

Our CEO, Dolly Padalia, says:

We welcome the tribunal's ruling that supports our approach to involving caregivers in their children's relationships and sex education.

At School of Sexuality Education, we believe that caregivers have a right to know what their children are being taught in RSE lessons and actively encourage schools to involve parents. We have never refused a parent request to view our resources, we hold regular caregiver information events, and our workshops take place in front of hundreds of teachers every year.

We have never kept any of our school resources "secret" and will never seek to do this. The judge's ruling allows us to continue to protect our intellectual property whilst providing transparency to caregivers. 

We will continue our important work advocating for young people's right to access comprehensive and LGBTQIA+ inclusive RSE.

A summary of the timeline of events:

Sept 2021: Two School of Sexuality Education facilitators attended Hatcham College to deliver five one-hour presentations on consent. Presentations were attended by teachers and students from various year groups.

Oct 2021: Haberdashers’ Hatcham College informed us that they “have had a request from a parent to see the resources you used for the KS4 session when you visited us”. We provide a bullet-point breakdown of the session content and the list of resources. They then ask for the powerpoint slides, which we also provide.

Nov 2021: Email correspondence with the CEO of Haberdashers’ Academies Trust South confirms that the CEO has met with the parent and showed her the slides on her school laptop during this meeting, but that the parent would also like a copy of the slides. We tell the school that we cannot provide the parent with a copy of the slides, however we are happy to meet with the parent in-person to show her the slides again, and have a member of our team verbally explain our content. (We later find out that this offer was not passed onto the parent by the school.)

December 2021: The parent submits an FOI request to Haberdashers’ Academies Trust South requesting a copy of School of Sexuality Education’s materials held by the Trust.

January 2022: The school does not disclose our materials. The parent requests an internal review of the FOI request she made to the school. 

March 2022: The Trust conducts an internal review and writes to the parent with their response that the ‘College handled the request correctly’ and withhold the requested material.

September 2022: The parent appeals to the ICO. A letter from the ICO to the Academies Trust also asks for another internal review, which was carried out. The ICO upholds the original decision.

November 2022: The parent lodges an appeal to the First Tier Tribunal. 

January 2023: School of Sexuality Education is added as Second Respondents. 

May 2023: School of Sexuality Education attends Tribunal Hearing.

June 2023: Tribunal dismisses appeal.

Details of the full decision by the First-tier Tribunal are available here.

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Any media enquiries should be directed to info@schoolofsexed.org.