Sex and love confused in Denmark

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33479, 9 March 1974, Page 11

Sex and love confused in Denmark

(By

J. MICHAEL HARRY)

Danish youth is singing and talking about love but it is only being educated about sex. A 12-year-old girl does not want to go to compulsory sex education in her school on the country’s west coast and her parents are fighting her case through the International Law Courts in The Hague. This is a very expensive affair for an ordinary family, but can it be called democracy? Children are being taught - to kiss the teachers of the opposite sex in school at a very early age in Denmark. They are also encouraged to Ro into the baths naked to touch each others’ bodies. This kind of sex education results in early sexual intercourse and at the same time the children are educated in the use of contraceptive devices; and the films used in the schools are sometimes demonstrated for the general public through the television during the week-night programmes. Of course educationalists say that anti-conception stops babies, but statistical evidence given through the ’“Danish Medical Journal”

shows that abortion on demand is gradually becoming the accepted method of control of the size of the family. ’ Abortion on demand is now legal for all who are under 12 weeks pregnant: girls under 18 years old must have parental permission for the operation, but the wife need have no consent from her husband. But what is happening after abortion on demand? Many complications The younger the girl the greater the physical complications associated with the abortion. Over 10 per cent of all women still have some complications with the operation, in spite of modern techniques and precautions. The long-term side effects are even worse. At least three to four per cent of these women never become pregnant again and this is serious when one realises that about 15 per cent of women become pregnant only once in their lives. Miscarriages increase by 30 to 40 per cent over the average rate — as do bleeding irregularities and pain in the genital region. Psychologically, the stress associated with an abortion is greater than giving birth to a child. This has been conclusively proved through some Swedish investigations. Marriages are breaking down among the youth because men are discovering that their wives are unable to have children due to previous abortions on demand, before marriage. Free pornography aids sex education and youth can see live shows between men and women, lesbians or homosexuals, or even between women and dogs. If it cannot afford to see these live shows, it can see pictures of such in the daily newspapers I ove and sex belong together but only within the

bounds of marriage, otherwise people tend to become stressed. Emotional problems The non-religious report of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, in February, 1972, concluded: "Few women esca,e some degree of physical or emotion trauma as the result of having to have a pregnancy terminated.” The report also emphasised that pre-marital intercourse is associated with emotional complications in the young, as well as a rise in the rate of venereal disease. The sex laws of Denmark are an indirect attack on its democracy. Democracy can exist only if the country is Christian, otherwise democracy in its own name will destroy what Christianity stands for, and then democracy is gradually replaced by another systemThis process is seen at work in Denmark, where Parliament recently had the support of its Minister of Church openly declare the need of abortion on demand.

After a television show, where a Lutheran priest married two divorced women who had subsequently become lesbians, the Minister of Church declared it was not against her theological convictions for all priests to marry such lesbians in the State Church. The Danish Prime Minister supported the Government giving SNZ6O,OOO to make a film about the sex life of Jesus Christ. This emphasis on free pornography and abortion on demand fits in with the teaching given about sex, but says nothing about love, although it assumes that love is sex. Atheistic politicians The idea that love and sex are an integral part of marriage is entirely a Christian view and it is being attacked directly by the many atheistic politicians, and, indirectly, by the ’passivity of the Church. Paul writes to the Church in Ephesus, “A man never hates his own body, but he feeds it and looks after it; and that is the way Christ treats the Church, because it is his body — and we are its living parts. For this reason, a man must leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one body. This mystery has many implications; but I am saying it applies to Christ and the Church.” The Christian home unit is as the Apostle writes, a symbolical picture of the mystical union between the relationship of Christ and his Church on the Earth. Sex without love and mar-

riage. destroys this unit, and hence tne influence of the Church. The recent Danish Government had a working committee which suggested children become economically independent of parents at the age of 15 by educational wages at school. At that age, if the children so wished, they could leave their homes in spite of the wishes of the parents, and begin their own community. This is an attack on the Ten Commandments but, more than that, it brings much heart sorrow to parents and does not satisfy the children. The control of children by the State can never replace the warmth of a normal home. It is no coincidence that there is a revival of Marxism in Europe, and this is probably due to the selfishness of capitalism and also partly to the failure of the Church.

From the Marxist point of view, this is to his political advantage as he sees the Christian society being broken down in the West and this gives him hope of bringing in a socialistic state which denies Christianity’s basic ideas. 1 feel that sex education should not be given in schools and that it should be kept for newly-married people and for those who have real sexual problems in marriage.

Many people today who want sex education and abortion on demand, have forgotten the words of Polybios, who wrote about the social and political decline which began in his own country, Greece, when it started practising abortion.

Michael Harry is an Englishman who has qualified in medicine both at London and Copenhagen universities. His training as a specialist in obstetrics and gynaecology began at the National Women’s Hospital, Auckland, in 1958, and continued in Denmark, where he was for the last 13 years. The law giving abortion on demand in Denmark became effective last year and although he is given the right to refuse this operation, political pressure is exerted through the Medical Union to comply with the laws of the

community more than the laws of humanity. This means that a doctor in Denmark must declare whether he will do abortion on demand or not, when applying for an appointment. It is a polite way of saying that those who do not do this operation will not be given the top jobs, says the writer, and he has taken the consequences of seeing the political writing on the wall and left his hospital life there. This has given him an opportunity to visit his immigrated family in New Zealand and work as a part-time gynaecologist and obstetrician at Tokoroa Hospital.