Today we are in The Daily Mail, as they reveal one of England and Wales’ leading providers of PSHE materials for schools is including mention of surrogacy and egg/sperm donor conception in their lesson plans for children who are aged as young as four.
The PSHE provider (Coram’s SCARF programme) has mentioned surrogacy in its plans for children in reception and year six classes in primary schools.
We accept and support that modern families take many shapes and forms, and that no child should feel left out or unseen, but including surrogacy in teaching materials at this age normalises a practice which is inherently harmful, unethical, exploitative and is never child-centred.
Surrogate born babies are removed from their mothers at birth, often never to see her again. This is cruel and harmful, given we know babies bond with their mothers in utero, recognising her voice, smell and milk and want only her at birth. Surrogacy exploits the poverty and need of working class women in this country, and poor women in developing countries also. It’s not a practice which should be acceptable to anyone, much less taught as a method of “family building” to our youngest and most impressionable children. If surrogacy is to be taught about, it should be to secondary school age children as part of lessons on ethical debates such as euthanasia and abortion.
We have written to the Secretary of State for Education, and the PSHE provider, to complain.
