According to the Associated Press, in order to combat “one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in Europe,” the British government is about to mandate sex education for all students, “including kindergarten-age children.” The AP reports:

The government hasn’t detailed what the new curriculum will look like, but schools will be asked to provide lessons on relationships and contraception, topics not previously required. Lessons will become more sophisticated as kids get older.

Elementary schools can offer lessons in naming body parts, preparing for puberty and relationship feelings, [Schools Minister Jim Knight] said.

For the very young, sex ed will mainly be about self-awareness, he said. “We are not talking about 5-year-old kids being taught sex,” he said. “What we’re talking about for key stage 1 (ages 5-7) is children knowing about themselves, their differences, their friendships and how to manage their feelings.”

But not everyone feels the state should decide when and how to broach the topic. “I am not the parent who calls her son’s penis a wee-wee. But I should decide if the word penis enters my child’s vocabulary at 5 or not,” said Elizabeth Talbot of London, who has two sons, aged 4 and 6 months old.

Parents in London, and the United States, have every reason to be concerned. There is simply no evidence that early sex education has any beneficial affect whatsoever.

The sex education industry wants to get sex ed curriculum into the classroom as early as possible in order to legitimize its larger agenda: normalizing teen sex. Heritage fellow Robert Rector explains:

There is never any mention of marriage or commitment in the sex ed industry materials. They regard casual sex between 16-year-olds as American as apple pie. When you read the materials they try and put in schools it reads like Hugh Hefner got together with the school nurse. The result is higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases, unstable marriages, and increased levels of poverty.