The Abstinence Clearinghouse Blog

I read this on a blog yesterday.  I found it very disturbing and thought I should share it with everyone.

U.N. Agency Calls for Teaching Children 5-to-8 Years of Age about Masturbation
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
By Christopher Neefus

(CNSNews.com) – A June report from the United Nations Economic, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) suggests children of all countries and cultures are entitled to sexual and reproductive education beginning at age five.

The report, called International Guidelines on Sexual Education, was released in June in conjunction with the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), an organization which works for universal access to “reproductive health care.”

In its rationale for creating the guidelines, the UNESCO report said it is “essential to recognize the need and entitlement of all young people to sexuality education.” An appendix backed that claim by pointing to a 2008 report from the International Planned Parenthood Federation that argued governments “are obligated to guarantee sexual rights,” and that “sexuality education is an integral component to human rights.”

The guidelines are designed, according to the report, to be “age-appropriate” and break down the suggested curriculum into four age groups: 5- to 8-year-olds, 9- to 12-year-olds, 12- to 15-year-olds and 15- to 18-year-olds.

For those aged 5 to 8, some key concepts to be discussed are:

– “Touching and rubbing one’s genitals is called masturbation” and that “girls and boys have private body parts that can feel pleasurable when touched by oneself.”
– That “people receive messages about sex, gender, and sexuality from their cultures and religions.”
– That “all people regardless of their health status, religion, origin, race or sexual status can raise a child and give it the love it deserves.”
– “Gender inequality,” “examples of gender stereotypes,” and “gender-based violence.”
– Description of fertilization, conception, pregnancy, and delivery.

By age 15, adolescents should be exposed “advocacy to promote the right to and access to safe abortion,” according to the guidelines.

SIECUS and Sex Ed

The authors of the report consulted the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) in building their curriculum framework. One of the two authors, Nanette Ecker, is a former SIECUS employee.

Like the UNFPA, SIECUS advocates for ensuring that “every person has the right and access to sexual and reproductive health, so that humanity and the natural environment can exist in balance and fewer people live in poverty,” according to the organization Web site. Their stated concern is the “depletion of natural resources” – which is reduced through access to abortions.

The founding director of the organization, Mary S. Calderone, was a director of Planned Parenthood. SIECUS currently belongs to the National Coalition to Support Sexuality Education, alongside groups like NARAL — The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, The Human Rights Campaign, and the National Council of La Raza.

In its justification for the new U.N. guidelines, the report says that programs supporting traditional values on marriage and sex are faulty.

“Abstinence is only one of a range of choices available to young people,” the authors wrote, describing abstinence-only programs as “fear-based” and “designed to control young people’s sexual behavior by instilling fear, shame, and guilt.”

[Yeah, right.  And, abortions and STD's are all great fun.  Nope, nothing scary or shameful about that.  The truth of the matter is that these people hate anything that has morality and personal responsibility at its core!

The Population Research Institute, a nonprofit research group aiming to dispel “the myth of overpopulation,” has taken issue with the U.N. report and its “guidelines.”

“We are definitely appalled, but not surprised,” said Colin Mason, PRI director for media.

Mason called UNFPA, UNESCO’s partner in releasing the guidelines, “one of the original population-control groups, so most of the things they do stem from that lens.”

Mason also said he did not believe it was justifiable to entitle children to sex education starting from a young age and labeling abortion as a human “right.”