Daily Mail 21/09/06 -
Socialists in condoms battle to sabotage abstinence campaign
Moves to hand out condoms to youngsters whose schools are encouraging them to abstain from sex are being backed by a group of MSPs.
The Scottish Socialist Party is urging members to collect condoms whia can then be distributed to schools.
The bid to sabotage the abstinence-only approach to sex education being piloted in some schools has infuriated church leaders and campaigners backing it.
And legal experts have warned that activists risk being charged with breach of the peace if strangers start handing out condoms to children at school gates. The pilot sex education scheme, entitled Call to Love, opposes what it calls 'artificial contraception', and ministers have backed it with £170,000 of public cash.
The project, which promotes abstinence and delaying sex until marriage, is already being rolled out to some Catholic schools in Edinburgh and Inverclyde. But the SSP's Youth wing, Scottish Socialist Youth, is being encouraged to scupper the project by giving out contraception to pupils from the schools involved.
A party memo states:'The SSY Women's Group is in the process of collecting condoms to distribute as part of our campaign to fight the abstinence-only education pilot which is going to be affecting selected schools in the central belt.
'We have decided to ask everyone to ask as many as possible the more the better'.
The memo goes on to tell members they can collect condoms from family planning clinics and from various voluntary groups.
Scottish Socialist MSP Carolyn Leckie said last night:'The idea that the abstinence-only approach to education works is an absolute joke, and the evidence for that is all over the world, particularly in the United States.'
But Catholic Church spokesman Peter Kearney said: 'This seems nothing more than an absurd and spiteful attempt to undermine a very successful approach to sexual health'.
'The "throw condoms at the problem" approach has demonsrably failed'.
A Scottish Socialist Youth Womens Group member issued the following reply.
The article in your Scottish edition regarding the SSY Women's Group campaign against abstinence only education bares little resemblance to the facts. There are NO plans for the group members to hand out condoms at school gates as you claim. In no way are the SSY being encouraged to scupper the campaign. The initiative came from our Women's Group (of which I am a member) and I'm glad to say we've been supported by comrades both in the SSY, SSP and the public.
Our campaign is much further reaching than "throwing condoms at the problem" as is suggested. We have spent a lot of time and effort gathering resources and putting together information for young women (from contraception to staying safe on a night out - something you fail to even mention, presumably it doesn't fit into your agenda.
We are not against abstinence - it should be the choice of the individual. If young women are not fully informed of all the options then this is not a choice they will be in a position to make.
Angela Gorrie
Scottish Socialist Youth Womens Group.
