By Rachael Wong
According to reports in The Age and Herald Sun last month, Year 11 students and staff at Melbourne’s Scotch College were left “shocked” and “reeling” by a presentation questioning abortion and contemporary sexual ethics. On Friday, Principal Scott Marsh apologised to parents for procedural failings following an internal review into how the presentation was organised – he did not apologise for its content. But was the impression given by the media really the response of the cohort, or of a few students and adults whose objections generated the controversy?
Dr Emma Wood, a philosopher and Research Fellow with Women’s Forum Australia, addressed students as part of the school’s Christian Education curriculum. Her research into abortion, sexual ethics and the sexual revolution raises legitimate – and vitally important – questions for young men.
Wood says the boys engaged in a rigorous and mature discussion, with several staying behind to ask further questions. Some reportedly described the presentation as confronting but thought-provoking. Overall, Wood described it as a “good educational experience”.
Yet it has been portrayed as though students were subjected to something unthinkable simply because Wood challenged the dominant cultural position on abortion and argued that sex should be connected to commitment and responsibility.
Some parents and students reportedly called for a more “rounded” presentation. Students should encounter different perspectives, and the college has said other speakers will address them. But would “balance” have been demanded had Wood endorsed abortion as healthcare or celebrated contemporary sexual norms? Young people routinely encounter those views through popular culture, social media, sex education and public institutions. “Balance” too often becomes something demanded only when prevailing orthodoxies are challenged.
Others argued that the school should have focused instead on pornography, misogyny, the Sydney Swans saga and recent allegations of sexual assault involving schoolboys. Those are serious matters, but the criticism misses the very point Dr Wood was making.
Her presentation questioned the sexual culture that has made abortion appear necessary – a culture that tells young men and women they are entitled to sex without commitment or consequences. Pornography, sexual objectification, casual sex, coercion, sexual violence, abandonment and abortion are interconnected manifestations of a culture that has separated sex from commitment, responsibility and respect for women and children.
This culture has often served the self-interest of irresponsible men, allowing them to pursue sex while expecting contraception and abortion to insulate them from its consequences. Women, meanwhile, continue to bear the physical and emotional consequences of pregnancy and abortion.
This is precisely why boys need to be part of this conversation – not because boys are the problem, but because they can be part of the solution.
Why should a pregnancy be treated solely as a woman’s problem when a man is equally responsible for creating that new life? Too often, women feel driven towards abortion because the father refuses to support them, pressures them to abort, threatens to leave or subjects them to abuse. The mantra “my body, my choice” is often synonymous with “your body, your problem”.
A culture that offers women abortion while excusing men from responsibility is not liberating women – it is abandoning them. But men can choose to respond with courage, commitment and love, supporting both mother and child when they are most vulnerable.
Telling boys that sex can create a child, that women must never be used or abandoned, and that fathers have obligations is hardly irrelevant to preventing misogyny. It challenges young men to reject a culture of exploitation and become men on whom women and children can depend.
Students do not have to agree with everything a guest speaker says. They should be encouraged to ask difficult questions, scrutinise arguments and reach considered conclusions. But education is impoverished when discomfort itself is treated as evidence that a perspective should not have been heard.
Abortion is a profound moral question involving the value of unborn human life, the welfare of women, the responsibilities of men and the kind of sexual culture we wish to create. Its legality does not place it beyond ethical examination. In a country whose laws permit abortion throughout pregnancy on broad grounds, where babies have reportedly been born alive and left to die following attempted late-term abortions, and where research shows that girls are being aborted because of their sex, that examination is all the more critical.
Scotch College acknowledged at the outset that it could have communicated more clearly with families, and its internal review has addressed those procedural issues. It does not follow that inviting Wood was wrong or that the college should apologise for exposing students to serious ethical arguments that challenge the prevailing narrative on abortion.
Principal Scott Marsh and Scotch College should be commended for defending the decision to invite Wood to speak. Good education does not shield students from unsettling ideas; it teaches them to confront difficult questions, consider unfamiliar arguments and examine assumptions they might otherwise take for granted.
By Wood’s account, the boys did exactly that.
Rachael Wong is the CEO of Women’s Forum Australia
Women’s Forum Australia is an independent, non-partisan think tank that undertakes research, education and public policy advocacy on issues affecting women and girls, with a particular focus on addressing behaviours and practices that are harmful and abusive to them. We receive no government funding and rely on the generosity of our supporters. Support our harm-prevention work today.
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