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The Conservative MP said her 10-minute bill was 'about giving empowerment to young girls'. It is nothing of the sort
Nadine Dorries wants more sex education for girls, but her own understanding seems a little limited. The Conservative MP has won support from parliament for more abstinence lessons for girls. Yes, just girls, who manage to produce Britain's high teenage pregnancy rate all on their own. There's a confusing sex education lesson right there.
Dorries said her 10-minute bill was "about giving empowerment to young girls". It is nothing of the sort. It is an atavistic move that in effect blames weak-willed, ill-educated teenage girls for many of society's ills. If they could just learn to say no, this former nurse believes we could see an end to too much sex on the telly, porn magazines in newspaper shops and padded bikinis for seven-year-olds as well as the highest teenage pregnancy rates outside America.
"Society is focused on sex. Teaching a child at the age of seven to apply a condom on a banana is almost saying: now go and try this for yourself," she said.
It is hard not to agree with Chris Bryant, the Labour MP who called her bill "the daftest piece of legislation I have seen brought forward". Within minutes of the vote, in which just 67 MPs trumped the 61 MPs against the bill, the Twittersphere had set up a #dorries hashtag in which the controversy-courting MP was accused of being anti-women, among other things.
It's fair to say she has form on this: she has criticised David Cameron's proposal to create all-women shortlists for prospective MPs, tried to ban women wearing high heels at work as the resulting pain made them take time off work, and tried to reduce the point at which an abortion can take place from 24 to 21 weeks. She is still keen to table an amendment insisting on compulsory counselling for women who want abortions, arguing again that if they are just told the options they will pick the right way.
The fictional MP Peter Mannion tweeted: "literally 'every' nutjob in House turned out. As 'bill' not going anywhere, sane not mobilized". Let's leave to one side the fact that 522 MPs were elsewhere while 128 people passed judgment on the nation's youth. It would still be wrong to simply reject this misjudged and frankly sexist bill as part of the outpouring of a lunatic fringe, even though it is unlikely to become law without government backing.
For there is a discussion to had about sex education and the view this reveals of women and sex.
Firstly, if teaching abstinence and particularly abstinence on its own reduced teenage pregnancy rates, why does the US have the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the OECD? This is now so accepted that one of the Obama's administration first acts was to cut funding for abstinence-only health programmes after America's leading health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, revealed one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease.
Secondly, studies have shown that comprehensive education works best.
That means teaching about contraception as well as the fact that, yes, just not having sex also works if you don't want to get pregnant or contract an STD.
The latest data from the Office for National Statistics show teenage pregnancies are at their lowest rate since the early 1980s with the rate among under 18 year olds falling by 13.3% since 1999.
Campaigners credit the government's teenage pregnancy strategy, a 10-year-programme set up in 1999 with the aim of halving the rate of conception in a decade, for some of this improvement. The quango set up to monitor progress was shut down last year and funding, such as it was, given to local authorities.
When Dorries attempted to lower the time limit for abortions, David Cameron agreed. Let's hope that this time, he just says no.