inappropriate video shown in school

L

lab-rat

Registered User
Messages
84
Hi all,
I went to an all girl convent secondary school in Dublin from 1986-1992. During a religious education class our teacher (who we later found out was an ex-nun) showed a very graphic video on abortion. I remember many girls crying and some having to leave the class distressed. When I think back on this, it really makes me angry. I have often thought of ringing the school and to ask if this is still going on.

I am hoping that this is just an isolated incident and not common practice.
Has anyone else experienced this?
 
I went to a boys school in Dublin, Christian Brothers run. We had the same sort of thing shown to us. No tears though.
(Is this a LOS thread?)
 
I was in school around that timeframe too and I recall some kids having watched a similar video (as part of their religon class). i didn't see it myself but the people who did were quite upset about it.

i attended a mixed, multi-denom school outside dublin.
 
watched it at the time too. It was shown when i was in 5th year and i think fair enough - you could leave if it was too gross for you but the fact was it made no difference, 2 in the year went to the UK for abortions in sixth year (large school about 200 per year). It would serve them better to teach more about ovulation etc and being communication skills and being confident enough to tell a fella "bog off I'm taking no chances".
IMO Abortion is not pretty, neither is childbirth and rearing when you are just 15/16 upwards yrs old so I think you should know what you are getting yourself in for if you are playing around without proper protection. At 16 the student should be able to make up their own mind to leave the room. Sometimes the teachers may honestly have the best reasons for showing these explicit videos like not wanting their students to sabotage their own lives but i honestly think they don't make too much of a difference. and I'm not a nun or teacher!
 
This was also shown in my college, an all boys school. It is a biased approach. I am also not sure if people were told that they could leave the room. On ther other hand the video was very true to the operational procedure for abortions.
 
Remember seeing the film HELGA about 30 odd years ago
Still frightens me - I think it must have been the huge cinema screen in full technicolour!
 
Just a suggestion - instead of showing that, why didn't they actually show a video of childbirth?? More in-your-face I'd imagine, and certainly enough to turn a boy off sex!

I would imagine an actual baby is more "real" than a foetus to a teenager, without getting in to an actual debate about it here.
 

Saw the video myself in school, which was a Franciscan run one in Meath. Was shown by teachers who were violantly opposed to any form of deabate on abortion - only that it was wrong and promised hellfire for anyone that did it. It was used as a shock tactic to indoctrinate us into their motto that the only way was gods way - and anything else was wrong wrong wrong. No debate or discussion on the pro's and cons of both sides...
 
Amygdala said:
On ther other hand the video was very true to the operational procedure for abortions.
Click to expand...

If it was designed to shock, then it's unlikely to have been true to the operational procedure for the vast majority of abortions. I haven't seen it but again, if it's designed to shock, it's most likely a late-ish term abortion - and these are horrible but fortunately not very common. The BBC showed a very controversial program a few years ago which showed a standard, early term abortion and there was pretty much nothing to see.
I have no time for people in authority using that authority to ram their message down the necks of younger people who aren't mature enough to argue back/debate the issues and/or know that they can just walk out. I would have no problem per se with showing a late abortion video so long as it was in the context of advising teenagers to (a) abstain, (b) use contraception if you can't/don't want to abstain, (c) look at all options if things do go wrong and (d) have an early abortion if you're going to have one at all.
 
My daughter was shown this video in school a few years back. I was furious, not only because she was so upset (couldn't sleep for days) but also because she was under age and no one sought my permission. It was a late abortion and the foetus had to be cut up...horrific! It was completely biased.

I kicked up such a stink with the school (asked if they felt they had the right to show, for example, a porn film without parental consent), that when it was my younger daughter's turn to see it, the school rang. I refused consent unless they were going to give an unbiased lecture/film on abortion which included reasons for and against. Needless to say it didn't happen.
 
I was shown the same video in about 3rd year.I remember one girl fainting.
When I think back ,it was absolutley horrific to show us the video
 
RainyDay said:
Just curious - What age group was the film shown to?
Click to expand...

My daughter was twelve at the time. She was the youngest in her class but the rest weren't much over thirteen. Thought it was disgraceful...am getting annoyed thinking about it. Girl in her class fainted also. Have a niece and she was shown video at eleven!!! IMO it's religious zealots at work...get them young etc.
 
liteweight said:
. . It was a late abortion and the foetus had to be cut up...horrific! It was completely biased.
Click to expand...
Biased? Abortion is not pretty. You can hardly expect a pro-life video to sugar coat the subject. The only issue is that the school should sought parental consent. As for being 12 or 13 . . in 1998 agents working on behalf of the Irish state ensured that a 13 year old girl was brought to England for an abortion, and all paid for by the Irish tax payer.
 
Doesn't the bias stem from the fact that no video is shown as to how the woman became pregnant or what life would mean had she not terminated the pregnancy. For example, what would it mean for mother and child if a 13 year old rape victim kept the babe. Who's to say that would be "pretty" either.

I remember the video in school but I wasn't there for some reason. I was forever having murders with them at school for this kind of thing though. Religion when I was there was basically anti sex education (particularly of the non-marital/homosexual variety, although they didn't seem to keen on it in any case). Didn't the state fund that (and the video) too?!

My nieces and nephews tell me it's proper religious education now though. I'm so glad the country has moved on - it feels like it was the dark ages and it's only 10 years ago! When one of my classmates was expelled for being pregnant before her leaving cert, her boyfriend still sat his.

I don't know if any of the girls remember the tampax lady being allowed to give lectures to explain about periods properly. I'm usually anti-commercial involvement in school but it was the only time that anyone talked in straight-forward language to us at school about our bodies.

Rebecca
 
MissRibena said:
Doesn't the bias stem from the fact that no video is shown as to how the woman became pregnant or what life would mean had she not terminated the pregnancy.
Click to expand...
No. That would suggest that it was narrow in scope, not biased. Also, I wish religion was left out of the abortion debate in general. IMHO it's an ethical issue not a religious one. I have a consistent life ethic but that doesn't make me a religious zealot.
 
 
In my opinion the main problem is the whole mess around the Catholic Church's involvement in education. The government hasn't the guts to stick up to them properly because they are afraid they'll have to buy them out of the buildings and they are too busy squandering money on the divil-knows-what so as a result there's a fairly strong Catholic legacy in the majority of the schools which leaves parents little or no choice. So in effect, we have a secular society pedalling a Catholic ethos while nodding and winking and pretending we are a multi-cultural/multi-demoninational/all-inclusive society. It's fairly typical of the way many things happen in this country; you could be forgiven that duplicity and hypocrisy are the foundations of the state.

Of course they shouldn't be showing explicit videos like that in school, especially when other aspects of sexual, spiritual and equality education were non-existant.

Rebecca
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register