I have just obtained a copy from a friend of a news briefing sent out by one ‘Niamh Burns’ of the ‘Communications Team’ which is a statement issued on behalf of the The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the Right Honourable Chris Heaton-Harris today, June 6th..
The statement is headed:
New — requirements for Relationship and Sexuality Education curriculum in Northern Ireland
I quote some of the words of the statement with my emphasis added.
“The UK Government is updating the requirements for Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) curriculum in Northern Ireland, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Chris Heaton-Harris has announced today (Tuesday 6 June).
The Regulations will amend the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2006, and the Education (Curriculum Minimum Content) Order (Northern Ireland) 2007 in relation to Key Stage 3 and 4.
They will make age-appropriate, comprehensive and scientifically accurate education on sexual and reproductive health and rights, covering prevention of early pregnancy and access to abortion, a compulsory component of curriculum for adolescents.
They will also place a duty on the Department of Education to issue guidance on the content and delivery of the education to be provided by 1 January 2024.
The Department will also be under a statutory duty to make Regulations about the circumstances in which at the request of a parent, a pupil may be excused from receiving that education, or specified elements of that education.
Consultation with parents on Relationship and Sexuality Education is already common practice in Northern Ireland and we expect the Department of Education to ensure schools afford parents the opportunity to review relevant materials.
The Regulations, in practice, will result in educating adolescents on issues such as how to prevent a pregnancy, the legal right to an abortion in Northern Ireland, and how relevant services may be accessed.
This should be done in a factual way that does not advocate, nor oppose, a particular view on the moral and ethical considerations of abortion or contraception.”
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the Right Honourable Chris Heaton-Harris, said:
“It is fundamental for their wellbeing that adolescents in Northern Ireland have access to age-appropriate, comprehensive and scientifically accurate education on sexual and reproductive health and rights that covers access to abortion and contraception.
“I look forward to working with the Department of Education to ensure the delivery and implementation of these measures, which will include meaningful engagement with young people, teachers and parents.”
I wish to make some observations which immediately spring to mind.
1. Clearly the NIO is going make it compulsory for schools to teach pupils deemed to fall within ‘the age-appropriate’ bracket, without saying what the ages of the pupils will be who will be subject to this direction.
2. The matters that will be taught are ‘comprehensive and scientifically accurate education on sexual and reproductive health and rights that covers access to abortion and contraception’ and the ‘prevention of early pregnancy’.
3. A vague reference is made to parents being afforded the right to have their children withdrawn from such instruction. Such a ‘right’ has yet to defined and stated.
4. The statement details the environment that must prevail while the subject is taught. ‘This should be done in a factual way that does not advocate, nor oppose, a particular view on the moral and ethical considerations of abortion or contraception.’
In other words, the teacher who believes the Bible is not permitted to state just what God’s teaching on this subject is. A Christian teacher will thereby be gagged.
5. All this is, it is claimed, is ‘fundamental’ for the ‘wellbeing’ of adolescents in Northern Ireland.
6. What this will encourage and teach is the way to a ‘safe’ life of immorality and abandonment of the age old truth of ‘chastity’! That is God’s way of safeguarding the moral welling of young people.
An ungodly Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the cohort at his command within the Education Department’, are bend on the further destruction of the moral fibre of Ulster.
This destruction began with the ‘new morality’ eagerly adopted by the liberal and ecumenical ‘mainstream churches’ here, the action of which opened the door to successive Secretaries of State to introduce, little by little, a liberal agenda by which the teaching of the Bible was effectively excluded from the classrooms of Ulster.
7. Children in the state system will thus be subject to the must evil of instruction aided by a generation of parents raised under liberal preaching and now happily handing their children over to the guidance of those who will teach how to ‘sin without suffering the short-time consequences’.
8. Short term consequences to a small measure might be avoided but the cost will be high. It entails the murder of the unborn as well as accruing guilt that will one day have to be face on that day “in the which he (God) will judge the world in righteousness ,” Acts 17:31.
How vile the will the ‘advice’ of the Secretary of State, conveyed via the classroom, be on that awful day appointed of God to “judge the world in righteousness, ” Psalm 9:8.
9. Christian, if your child attends a ‘State School’, where these dreadful matters are taught, how will you explain your utter folly and your contemptible disregard of your child’s eternal spiritual wellbeing?
10. We are seeing again the spirit at work amongst the shameful parents of Israelite children in Egypt under the degree of Pharaoh whereby each boy child was to be murdered at birth. There was a most reprehensible compliance by Jewish parents. “The same dealt subtilly with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live,” Acts 7:19.
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
6th June 2023