The Family Education Trust (FET) has said that government’s attempt to make life easier for sexual subcultures has come at the cost of basic maternity services.
The trust cited research by baby-loss charities which suggested that since 2018 at least 2,500 babies died needlessly due to poor maternity care. The government has already announced that maternity and neonatal services at 14 English hospital trusts are to be subject to a national investigation.
As well as patchy maternity care, the trust noted that some hospitals struggle to fulfil their core function of providing care to their patients and, in some extreme cases, are places where patients have experienced abuse and even criminality.
Blackpool Victoria Hospital in particular was singled out for being the scene of several sexual assaults on staff by a senior cardiothoracic surgeon, and the unlawful killing of a patient. There were also reports of patients being unlawfully sedated and mocked by staff.
Rather than funding proper maternity care and basic services, the Family Education Trust argued that too many resources have been put into diversity and inclusion initiatives and into “harm reduction” measures for people engaging in harmful sexual behaviours and drug use.
“The London Ambulance Service now hands out harm‑reduction cards at chemsex call‑outs with QR codes linking to ‘safer sex’ and drug information," said the trust.
“For those who don’t know, ‘chemsex’ parties are drug-fuelled orgies where gay men have sex with multiple different partners, which can go on for days.
"Rather than advising men that unprotected sex with strangers is unadvisable due to the health risks, the Government is taking a ‘non-judgemental harm reduction’ approach and using millions of pounds of taxpayers' money to do so.”
Rather than try to reduce the harm caused by such behaviour, the trust has called on the government to neutrally and factually inform young people about the risks involved.
For example, men who have sex with other men are 23 times more likely to get HIV than the general population and, similarly, anal sex has a higher risk of spreading sexually transmitted infections than conventional sexual activity.
The trust said, “Education policy matters here. RSHE statutory guidance expects LGBT content to be integrated across programmes.
"But if schools present all adult sexual lifestyles as equivalent in risk, they are not educating — they are withholding material information that matters for safeguarding and health.
“RSHE should teach biological facts and evidenced risk profiles without euphemism or cheerleading, so that children hear the same clear message we expect from clinical services: delayed sexual activity, stable relationships and low partner numbers protect against both physical and emotional harm.”
