London, England, Apr 8, 2010 / 00:47 am
The British parliament dropped clauses in an education bill that would have made it mandatory for Catholic schools to provide, among other things, “non-judgmental” information about abortion and contraception to students as part of a new sex education initiative.
The Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) initiative would have also have been required for children as young as five and would have forbidden parents from removing their children from sex education classes once they turned fifteen.
SRE was a part of the Personal Social Health and Economic (PSHE) measure, which will be dropped when the House of Lords passes the larger Children, Schools and Family Bill on April 8, according to numerous news reports.
The Telegraph reported on Wednesday that Conservatives within the House of Lords called the removal of PSHE from the larger bill a victory for common sense. If the bill had passed, conservatives said teachers in England would have been “swamped” with red tape.