Life-saving vaccine denied to girls

When the UK Government first decided to provide the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to all girls it was met with opposition from those who claimed that it would 'fuel promiscuity'. Of course this is nonsense and everyone who works in sexual health with young people said so at the time. 


Either the vaccinations would be given with no explanation to the girls of the fact that HPV is a sexually transmitted infection in which case most girls would make no connection – either positive or negative – between the vaccine and sexual activity OR – obviously the option we favoured – the vaccination programme would be used as an opportunity to do some sexual health promotion. This work would:

• celebrate the fact that this vaccine could prevent the majority of deaths from cervical cancer 
• encourage girls to have regular pap or 'smear' tests once they are old enough 
• talk about minimising risk factors for other cancers and the importance of regular breast checks for adult women and testicular checks for men
• outline the risks for men of contracting HPV 
• emphasise that the vaccination does not give them protection against any of the other panoply of STIs or, of course, against pregnancy. 

I haven’t found much information about what education or information is being provided alongside the vaccination, but this study suggests that offering and giving the vaccine has NOT changed young women’s sexual behaviour, turned them into wild nymphomaniacs; or caused them to throw their condoms on the bonfire and caution to the wind.


Today this article reports on schools that are not providing the vaccination because ‘their pupils follow strict Christian principles and do not have sex outside marriage’. So, first the vaccination was rejected because it would promote unsafe sexual behaviour and now it is rejected because pupils in some schools don’t need it as they will definitely not have sex outside of marriage.


Even if it was true that girls who commit to chastity in their early teens don’t ever end up having pre-marital or extra-marital sex (clue: it isn’t), it doesn’t take account of the fact that an abstinent girl can be raped, can be coerced into sex, or can marry a man who has previously had sex and is infected with HPV. 

Approximately 1,000 women in the UK die each year from cervical cancer. Clearly the schools that are rejecting the vaccination think that this is a risk worth taking....

More on risk perception following vaccination

Mothers and adolescents' beliefs about risk compensation following HPV vaccination

Abortion Education article in Education and Health

Read our article about abortion education published in this month's Education and Health

Auditing abortion education

Education For Choice has been trying to get hold of teachers in schools across England to find out what they're teaching about abortion, how and what outside visiting speakers they're using to deliver it. Teachers - being busy, seeing PSHE as a low priority, fearing that we are going to publish their good practice and get Daily Mailed, or tell them off for their bad practice - have been poor respondents.

That's why we're asking people to let us know what they can about what's being taught in UK schools.
Here are some quotes left on our A Word blog about people's experiences of how school handles the topic. I don't think these experiences are out of the ordinary:

Like my sons 'community' school which is run by a headmistress and head of governers who both attend the same local church and give voice to every fundamentalist roadshow and preacher that passes by. My objection is people like this who use their own private personally held beliefs to inform school policy. The no opt out is really the only way you will get anything like this past people in control who have a religious axe to grind.
Comment on 'A Word' Blog

I finished secondary school a couple of years ago. Quite a lot of girls were pregnant whilst at school, and everyone knew at least one person who had an abortion, so they knew the 'reality'. We never had people come in to the school to talk to us about abortion and it didn't come up until year 11. That was only because we needed to know religious views on abortion for our RE exam! It was nothing to do with giving us information that may affect us in life - and I think this is one of the issues - schools have become focused on exams and not the emotional/other sides of life.
Comment on 'A Word' blog

Everyone out there has an experience of abortion education we want to hear about. It will probably fall into about five broad categories:

1. We were taught nothing about pregnancy decision-making and abortion
2. We were only taught about it in RE and in terms of different religious perspectives, but with no practical content about relationships, decision-making, contraception etc
3. We were taught about it in RE/PSHE by having outside speakers come in from anti-abortion organisations, giving us questionable information/complete misinformation and/or showing us gory images and film footage
4. We were taught about it in a debate style where we had a speaker from 'one side' and then from the 'other side' to talk about the moral issues
5. We were taught about it by our SRE/PSHE teacher and we looked at it in the context of relationships, decision-making, risk taking, contraception

You could send us your experiences as a student, teacher or parent about what is happening in your/your child's school.

If you are happy to let us know your school's name and borough that would be great. Just so we know that all our feedback isn't from the same school!

This kind of feedback however anecdotal is important - especially in the absence of a more comprehensive study of what's happening out there.

It would be great if you could send this email out far and wide to get as many responses as possible

If you want your comment to be anonymous you could leave it as a comment on this blog. If you are happy for us to be in touch or want your feedback to be less public please email us with your story

'The A Word'

“You might be more successful with your fundraising applications if you stopped using ‘The A Word’”. This was the advice we received last week from the professional fundraiser we are working with. According to her, “it puts people off”. The 'A Word' she was referring to was abortion.

It’s precisely because the word ‘abortion’ puts people off that Education For Choice (EFC) needs to exist. Up to one in three women in the UK will experience abortion. It is a safe, common, legal medical procedure available on the NHS. So why are we so reticent to talk about it, to provide our young people with evidence-based information about it, even to name it? Education For Choice is launching a new campaign to make sure that all young people know the facts about abortion. Our new campaign, ‘The A Word’, aims to improve provision of education about pregnancy prevention, pregnancy decision-making and abortion.

When abortion is discussed in schools, too often it is done by those with a political agenda who are prepared to disseminate misinformation in order to support their argument. Anti-abortion organisations claim to reach tens of thousands of young people in schools across the country, invited by teachers unaware of the damage they may inflict. Instead of creating a safe environment for young people to consider this complex issue, they often use graphic images and misinformation to promote their anti-abortion agenda. Myths that EFC has been fighting for years, such as the idea that abortion causes infertility, gain strength and momentum as they are presented in the classroom environment.

This form of abortion education has set a dangerous precedent – that it is acceptable to deliberately misinform young people and to conflate facts and values in topics that have an ethical dimension. Parents and scientists worry about what topic will be next in which the opinions of teachers or visitors might trump the facts.

‘Surely issues like abortion should be addressed in a way that makes all the facts available rather than merely opinion, thus enabling the students to reach a conclusion by informed debate. When it comes to abortion it’s so important – it can affect the rest of their lives.’

Samantha Bracey, Parent.

At EFC we believe that young people should not be lied to. School should be a place where they can learn to recognise the difference between values and evidence and to avoid conflating opinion and fact, sermons and science.

Our ‘A Word’ campaign has one goal: to ensure that young people can receive accurate information and good quality education about abortion whoever they are and wherever they are. To achieve this we will:

1. Continue providing our pregnancy decision-making and abortion education workshops in schools so that we carry on meeting young people, providing them with information, finding out what they need to know, and training professionals to provide them with the best possible education and support.

2. Conduct an audit of what and how schools in England are teaching about abortion within Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) and Religious Education to demonstrate the paucity of good quality abortion education.

3. Campaign for comprehensive SRE that includes evidence-based information and discussion about abortion – with no opt outs for schools or parents.

All our education work is currently unfunded. If you believe that young people have a right to accurate information and good quality education on abortion, please visit our Just Giving page and help us reach our goal of raising at least £50,000 by the end of December which will help EFC to carry out its education and advocacy work for the next year.

You can also support EFC and our work with young people and professionals by showing that you are not afraid of ‘The A Word’. We ask you to:

• Sign our statement of support for The A Word campaign

• Follow us on Twitter

• ‘Like’ our Facebook page

• Tweet, blog and spread the word about our important campaign

• Become a Champion For Choice and offer EFC some of your time to support this work.

Visit our website and read the rest of our blog to learn more about our work. To discuss other ways of supporting us, or to find out more about how we will use your donation,

email us: efc (at) efc.org.uk.