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	Manipulating Words to Shock and Scare By Pamela Hansen Malta Independent November 7, 2010 http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=114960 Gozo’s ‘Prima Donna’, no, not Giovanna, is at it again and was back in the headlines last week, when he told a conference on the theology of the body, “The education system may be abusing students if instead of helping them to control their sexual energy it teaches them about contraception.” Soon we shall be told that giving out information about the use of contraception is a sin, attempting to scare teachers into submission. Talk about control! It would have been helpful if suggestions on how to help people control their sexual energy were forthcoming. It clearly has not worked with the priests who have been found guilty of abusing children. Bishop Mario Grech, who not so long ago linked abortion with divorce, was back at pushing himself in the limelight, this time equating teaching about contraception with abuse. As expected, the Bishop’s statement produced many comments topping the “Most Commented” Times online list on Friday. Attempting to pre-empt the backlash criticism on the abuse of children by priests, Bishop Grech started his speech by condemning the sexual abuse of minors whether perpetrated by lay people, priests or members of religious orders. “Sexual abuse cases should be reported to the competent authorities, particularly the police,” he said. Now that is very sensible. It is a shame that the Church is only now acknowledging that it is the right way to deal with child abuse after decades, probably more, of actually covering up such abuse. How the Bishop could use the word “abuse” when talking about teaching students about contraception just after his statement on real sexual abuse beggars belief. Sexual vigour is a natural emotion that is part of our psyche and, while students should be taught about the immorality of casual sex, it is certainly not abusive to tell them how they can protect themselves against disease and unwanted pregnancy. The conference was organised to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the opening of Dar Guzeppa Debono, a Gozitan home for unmarried mothers kicked out by their families in Gozo. I was not at the conference, so I don’t know whether the focus was actually on the Christian value of how families should support rather than abandon their daughters who become pregnant while unmarried. But according to the press report, it was contraception that took centre stage and it was not its use to prevent unwanted pregnancies, but that teaching about it “may be abusing students”. Meanwhile, the dean of the Faculty of Theology at the university, Fr Prof. Emmanuel Agius, backed Mgr Grech’s comments, reportedly saying, “If sexual education focused only on promoting contraceptives, it could be tantamount to abuse.” Some of us are getting so tired of knee-jerk reactions. First of all sexual education does not “focus only on promoting contraceptives”. It is the Church and fundamentalists that centre on contraceptives. Secondly, even if it did focus on the use of contraceptives, considering the risks involved in not using that protection, no one in his or her right mind would call that abuse. However, while saying he agreed with Bishop Grech’s comments Fr Agius seemed to backtrack when he told The Times “I think students should have full information” adding “there is no harm in teaching them about contraception”, when asked if sex education without any reference to contraception was also tantamount to abuse. As if sex education could not include contraception use! “The role of an education programme should be to teach students to live their sexuality in a mature way. There is no harm in teaching them about contraception but students should be given all the information: how safe, how unsafe and the health hazards. We should not project the myth that contraception solves all problems,” said Fr Agius. Well I don’t know who is projecting the myth that contraception solves all problems and of course an education programme should be to teach students to live their sexuality in a mature way. Reacting to Mgr Grech’s comments, Health Minister Joseph Cassar stressed with The Times that the proposed sexual health policy did not seek to promote contraception but “seeks to promote sexual health and sexual well-being as an essential component of everybody’s healthy life style”. “The policy will be the basis for a sexual health strategy and will be the framework for action because it comprises a series of recommendations drawn upon sound evidence. It is not simply about promoting contraception and avoiding and preventing the spreading of diseases,” Dr Cassar said. Not long ago, the Prime Minster said the Opposition was using words like chewing gum. It was about the BWSC power station contract, which, incidentally, will not go away and is still hanging over the government’s head. What the Prime Minster meant was the stretching of a word’s meaning. It is not only politicians from both sides of the House that manipulate words to suit and the way the word “abuse” is being used in the context of teaching about contraception is a prime example. It would not be surprising if GU Clinic head Philip Carabot were angry. He was reported in The Times as being “enraged” by Bishop Grech’s assertion that teaching students about contraception may be tantamount to abuse. However, despite that he has been battling, against the tide of procrastination, to see a holistic sexual health policy being finally agreed on for over a decade and having his objective constantly sabotaged to boot, he was remarkably upbeat rather than angry, when I spoke to him on Friday. “I am not exactly surprised. We have become used to this kind of hysterical reaction from certain quarters. It is extremely unproductive and I’ve lost patience with these people,” he told The Times on Wednesday. What was surprising to me was Dr Carabot’s positive stance “for the first time we are seeing official recognition on the need of a sexual health policy and it is to be published in November and the Health Ministry has allocated ˆ200,000 towards it in the budget”, he told me. That, however, is nowhere near the ˆ1.5 million needed. And there has been no announcement from the Education Ministry, which is where funds are crucially needed, on whether any of its budgets has been allocated to sexual health education. Dr Carabot thinks that the educational aspect is more important than the medical one. “There is a shortage of teachers specialising in this field and we need a major rethink on how our education system should deal with this problem”, he told me. So it seems that our students are getting hardly any sexual health education, let alone the likelihood of the “carpet bombing of schools with condoms” as one particularly strident anti contraception commentator put it. Meanwhile, a crucial study dealing with health relating to what people resort to most in abusing their bodies released in the Lancet on Monday did not seem to elicit much response in our local newspapers. The UK study, by the breakaway Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs led by David Nutt, was telling us that the serious health issue of alcohol abuse is not being given its due attention. Here, we are still arguing about whether we should be teaching our children about contraceptive use and allowing divorce. While the most outspoken in the Church rant on about the dangers of contraception and divorce, they do not seem to be unduly bothered by alcohol abuse. Does that not feature in “the theology of the body”? It seems that controlling sexual energy seems more important than alcohol abuse to them. The authoritative study claimed that alcohol is the most dangerous drug in the UK by a considerable margin, beating heroin and crack cocaine into second and third place, reported The Guardian newspaper on Monday. “If drugs were classified on the basis of the harm they do, alcohol would be class A, alongside heroin and crack cocaine,” claimed the UK study. Our Health Minister, Joe Cassar, said in Parliament that during the first three quarters of the year there were 208 people who were admitted to hospital because of alcohol abuse. Of these three were under 15 years of age and 28 between 15 and 24. People admitted to hospital because of drug overdose amounted to 217, of whom 24 were under 15 and 50 between the ages of 15 and 24. Of course we do not have any statistics on binge drinking here. We don’t know whether the statistics included innocent people injured because of drunken brawls, or how many women are suffering in silence because of the problem of alcohol abuse. Sex and alcohol are related and alcohol abuse can lead to sexual abuse and unwanted pregnancies. Professor Nutt called for far more effort to be put into reducing harm caused by alcohol, pointing out that its economic costs, as well as the costs to society of addiction and broken families, are very high. “If you take overall harm, then alcohol, heroin and crack are clearly more harmful than all others, so perhaps drugs with a score of 40 or more could be class A; 39 to 20 class B; 19-10 class C and 10 or under class D.” This would result in tobacco being labelled a class B drug alongside cocaine. Cannabis would also just make class B, rather than class C. Ecstasy and LSD would end up in the lowest drug category, D, ” he said. He was not suggesting classification was unnecessary: “We do need a classification system – we do need to regulate the ones that are very harmful to individuals like heroin and crack cocaine.” Don Shenker, the chief executive of Alcohol Concern, told The Guardian: “What this study and new classification shows is that successive governments have mistakenly focused attention on illicit drugs, whereas the pervading harms from alcohol should have been given a far higher priority. “Drug misusers are still 10 times more likely to receive support for their addiction than alcohol misusers, costing the taxpayer billions in repeat hospital admissions and alcohol related crime. “Alcohol misuse has been exacerbated in recent years as government failed to accept the link between cheap prices, higher consumption and resultant harms to individuals and society. “[The] government should now urgently ensure alcohol is made less affordable and invest in prevention and treatment services to deal with the rise in alcohol dependency that has occurred,” he said. In response to criticism on the study, on Friday Professor Nutt wrote in The Guardian “Since pointing out this week that alcohol is more harmful than any other drug, I have been painted as an alcohol prohibitionist or, conversely, as someone who wants to legalise all drugs. Neither is true, and this misrepresentation is testament to how sterile this debate has become. We must get beyond this.” There is no doubt that the alcohol lobby will be defensive about this report, but it is also aware that alcohol abuse is a serious problem and with the Christmas season coming soon, without meaning to be a Cassandra, domestic violence and sex abuse can follow in its wake. Having said that, I am no teetotaller and I hope that good wine will still be affordable. It is a matter of keeping things in perspective. More vigilance and enforcement is needed on underage drinking in places like Paceville and the police should concentrate on breathalysing motorists. That’s just for starters. Contact: pamelapacehansen@gmail.com
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