Need to rant about anti-choice teacher

[RiaOverTheRainbow]

[To be on the safe side I'll say now this may be graphic and/or triggering.]

This happened back in 2005 when I was 14 and knew very little about abortions, or feminism in general, but I've remembered an RE class called 'When does life begin?' and I'm fucking furious to realise the bullshit the teacher told us.

Firstly the class itself was massively insensitive as it was widely known that one of the girls had recently had an abortion (it's possible the teacher didn't know but unlikely, and anyway their could have been other girls who'd kept it quiet).

He described the process of surgical abortion, apparently entirely ignorant of drug-induced abortion, and said he could only find information on the actual procedure on pro-life websites (can't have looked very hard, I found plenty on pro-choice sites).

We were shown a picture of an abortion which, with hindsight, was clearly late-term as there were fully formed limbs visible. There was no explanation that this was very different from a first trimester abortion, or even that these are by far the most common. I don't think there was any point to the picture other than to upset us, he'd already described everything in great detail.

We were told some anecdotes which I won't repeat as they were very unpleasant, which I now realise were impossible. He probably wasn't deliberately lying, but fact-checking was clearly less important than scaremongering. He also told us embryos feel pain by 12 weeks, from what I've read estimates vary hugely but the very minimum is 18 weeks.

When someone asked him "What about 12 year olds who get pregnant?" he said "I don't think 12 year olds should be getting pregnant." Right, that solves that problem then. No mention at all of rape, abusive relationships, threats to the mother's physical or mental health. Oh, except that most women who have abortions will get depression.

He told us several times he didn't want to influence us but he seemed very disappointed when, at the end, most of the class still thought women should have the right to terminate unwanted pregnancies, though he managed to leave all the girls terrified of the idea.

Thanks to anyone who read all of that, I randomly remembered the class today and realised how much we were told didn't tally with what I've learned since, and I hope posters here will understand why it made me so angry!

[sashh]

I have taught this topic (at two non faith schools) and you'll be glad to know it's presented in a much more balanced way

It might be at non faith schools but it isn't at RC ones.