to think this is very wrong?

[47to31in7days]

www.newsrt.co.uk/news/teachers-at-salford-school-help-girl-pupil-15-have-abortion-without-telling-her-parents-488772.html

They ask for CONSENT FORMS to take the kids to a museum in the town centre during school hours...
or to rub sun lotion on little ones...
and they can't use corporal punishment on misbehaving pupils (quite rightly so IMO) even WITH parental consent, while mild smacking is still legal at home...

But when it comes to getting rid of an unwanted baby, suddenly teachers know what's best for a child who isn't theirs and the consent form doesn't get sent because the person who is actually responsible for the girl is a nuisance to be EXCLUDED from all decisions.

AIBU to be annoyed that anyone in a respected position at a school would think this was acceptable?

I see this from a slightly different perspective, as I know teens on both sides of this, and neither side makes the parents the victim.

As we all know, there are many different situations that lead a teen to end up pregnant, this service is provided for those that need to access it.

The OP writes as though the rights of the parents trump the rights of the daughter to have autonomy over her body. In what scenario are we saying that a girl must cede those rights to her parents?

I agree that the girls should trump the parents when it comes to the decision, but I worry about the consequnces of the girls going back to a home where noone is alert to look for complications after the proceedure

I have 2 DD's - they are still young but I hope that I will bring them up to be sensible enough about sex not to get pregnant before they are ready.

However, IF they do get pregnant as teenagers then I would hope that we will have the kind of relationship that they feel they can come to me

BUT if they don't I am very glad that they will be able to go to another trusted adult who will be able to support them through making the right decision for them. Much, much worse would be if they had to face a situation like an unplanned pregnancy on their own or with only the support of their peers.

I have grown them, given birth to them and will raise them to the best of my ability, but I do not own them. They are autonomous human beings and just because I am their mother it does not give me an automatic right to have a say about this type of issue based on some arbitrary age limit.

WenTheEternallySurprised

"It isn't the teachers who would have to pick up any medical or emotional pieces which might follow."

All this proves is that you do not know half of what schools and teachers do.

I have said on this thread about 4 times to have a TOP under the age of 16 you have to have. responsible adult over the age of 18 who is aware and with you and available to be there should there be any problems and ideally would be able to spend the night with you.

how can the resposible adult keep an eye on them for the night after the TOP without the parent's knowing?

Tannhauser - let's not turn this into an abortion v anti-abortion discussion. That could go on forever. You say it's a foetus not a baby, but pro-lifers generally believe it is a baby from conception. Anyway...

Someone asked earlier how I'd feel if it was my DD. Well my SD got pregnant at 15 and had her baby at 16 so I do have some experience of it all! She only told her mum at 15weeks, she was thinking of terminating but decided not to go through with it after a scan. She told us at 16 weeks when she had made her decision. A friend had made her take a test and tell her mum as she had stuck her head in te sand and not even tested until what turned out to be 15 weeks.

We get on extremely well (I have known her since she was 5) and even though she knows my catholic background and my beliefs, it was me she phoned up and told about it. I then had the pleasure of telling DH! . There is only 14months between my DS2 and GS so we had a very little one at the time. We live 3hrs away but went up to talk to her, her mum and SD two days later.

If she had decided to terminate I don't honestly know whether we would have been told. At the end of the day it would have been her decision and I wouldn't have judged her for it. I can't deny I'd have been very sad inside though. Had that been the case I think it would be a lot more damaging for us for us to find out ten years down the line than at the time.

As it turned out GS is now 7, SD went back to school, finished her A levels, took GS with her to university and got a good degree. She is now working full time while GS is at school. All has worked out very well, although it was a shock and a half at the time.

Thumbwitch - I wouldn't have given her "my anti-abortion spiel", I don't have a standard "spiel", just beliefs that I hold strongly.

I think it's patronising to assume that someone having an opinion means that they could not rationally explore all options when necessary. I like to think that I would consider the best for that person and help them to consider all options. Personally I think abortion is murder but I certainly wouldn't say that, and am probably only being so open about it here on an anonymous forum. If asked generally, I would tell people that for me I am anti-abortion, but for others it is up to them. After all, I don't know whether the person i am talking to might have had an abortion, i know plenty of people who have. Doesn't mean I think it is ok, just that it's not my business.

It's all about responsibility afterwards and notification, not wanting to make the decision for them or believing that "the parents' right trumps the girl's" which is the straw man put up by some of those against it.

threeprinces and monkeymoma have experience of this situation, sensual works in a clinic that deals with abortion so she will obviously be in favour (although her points on age of consent and the word "druggie" were ones I could go with), it's not certain by any means what side BBJ is on.

I manage a sexual health and counselling centre for young people - this does not automatically make me in favour of abortion .

I had an abortion myself actually when I was a 17 year old "druggie". I felt forced by my mum and have always regretted it.

I mean in favour of confidentiality as opposed to informing parents, as these centres (Brook Advisory esp.- I believe they were the first group to hand out free condoms to youth without any abstinence advice, and the Responsible Society were always against them back in the 70s) are very pro-confidentiality and pro-choice. I assumed people would not work in one, certainly as manager, if they disagreed with their whole approach to the matter.

Maybe you shouldn't make I any assumptions?

I don't disagree - but some people who do work for us - you own views are your own private views - you don't take them to work with you.

So many assumptions doh!!

yanbu op

OP YABU.

Look, a 15yo isn't an adult, but she isn't dim, either. She is likely to know her parents and their reactions much better than any of us.

My parents were ver' nice middle class types with fairly liberal views on abortion and sex (theoretically). However, when I first had sex (18.5 years old!) my father told me that he didn't want me to return to the house as I might 'corrupt' my sisters. When he relented on that, he then refused to let my sisters visit me at university on the grounds that I might 'pimp them to men, just like I had prostituted myself'.

I would assume this young girl is smart enough to know her parents' likely views and acted accordingly. Of course, she could just a hysterical self-dramatist who gives her parents no chance to support her but I don't see any evidence to suggest that.

Also, once she's told her parents and they freak out, what then? There's no going back from that. Maybe she just erred on the side of caution.

Another one in the YABU camp. An abortion still has to be approved by two doctors. Clearly both these doctors thought this girl was capable of providing informed consent. That being so, she also had the right not to have her parents told. Consent and confidentiality are two major cornerstones in the trust relationships that patients have with the medical profession and in my opinion 'she's 15 and still a child' is not an argument that trumps breaching either of these things.

I would hope that my daughters would feel able to come to me, and in a situation where a girl said that she could not confide in her parents about this I would take that very seriously - however badly she put those arguments into world.

I also think it is incredibly patronising to use the 'oh, teenage girls are such drama queens' argument - there are very very few people who take the decision to terminate a pregnancy lightly.

"She's 15 and still a child" is not an argument against all consent, I know. I do understand how Fraser/Gillick work and generally support their use for whether a young person can have the final decision on a medical issue. Also medical confidentiality rules do not apply to schools; they have similar latitude to keep confidences, but while medical professionals must keep confidences where the child is competent, teachers are allowed to inform parents about any major thing in a pupil's life. The relationship between teacher and pupil is conducted in the expectation that home/school links are acceptable and sometimes necessary while doctor/patient relationships are under a much stronger norm of confidentiality and the parent has nothing to do with the doctor once they decide competency exists.

It is that I believe in parental notification unless there are extreme circumstances. American states have two different types of law on minors and abortion, "parental consent" in the strictest conservative states, and "notification" in other more moderate ones which does exactly as it says on the tin, and does NOT give the parent the right to decide either way. This is what I'm advocating.

YABU i was in that position when i was 15 , i found out i was pregnant and was terrified my boyfriend at the time made it clear he wanted nothing more to do with me i had few friends to support me and i knew if i told my parents they would go mad and be ashamed of me. I made a choice which was right for me and with support from school and family planning clinic i had a termination , it was the hardest desision i had ever made but i dont regret it for a moment and i know my life would be so different if my parents had known . My mother is very religious and would never have "allowed" me an abortion so effectivly i would have been forced to have a baby i was no way ready for or have an abortion with there knowledge and be outcast , and probably tossed out .l

From a parents point of view of course i would rather my daughter told me if she ever found her self in that situation , but as pp said if she didnt feel able i would be so glad she had someone for support.
Sorry for spelling/grammer smart phone isnt so smart.

Yes, OP, but how would you feel if a news story got out about a girl who had told her parents that she was pregnant and wanted a termination and she had been thrown out in the street or Heaven forfend, killed?

The laws and the regulations are there to strike a balance between the rights and the protection of the individual and the rights of the parents.

I really doubt that the school and the medics between them told this girl that it was perfectly OK for her parents not to know and then just waved the termination through.

Ultimately the decision that this girl was competent to choose a termination was made by doctors, not by teachers. I find it very difficult to see any argument for the girl's teachers to have told the girl's parents when the doctors clearly were not going to - it would have been a horrible betrayal of trust and would have left this girl without any trusted authority figured to turn to.

Of course it would be better if the parents had been involved, and who knows perhaps this girl will one day feel able to talk to her parents about this - but on the day she was not, and the laws and regulations were invoked to provide her with an outcome she was legally entitled to. It's sad that this happened, but it is not wrong.

You are pro-life, aren't you? Quoting America as an example of how the rules should be on this is a bit of a giveaway.

47 but notification does give the parents the ability to make the child's life hell. Maybe they would be lovely and supportive, but if someone who has lived with them for 15 years thinks not, I'd be willing to take her word for it in the absence of other evidence.

Also - how do you know that her father isn't her baby's father? Seriously? That might sound extreme, but obviously these things happen. I think the right to privacy is more important.

Surely this is down to the law and good safeguarding and counselling practice? I am no expert, but as far as I understand it, the medics have to consider Fraser competence and can then treat an under-16 without parental consent.

And I know the stuff about counselling from my kids' school makes clear their duty is to the child - they do not report to the parents. In most circumstances, they would encourage/support the child to talk to the parents, and they would, if it was a safeguarding issue and there was no alternative, break confidentiality, though not necessarily to the parents.

I don't understand the "Well I would want to know" comments. Surely this is about the child: the first duty of professionals dealing with a pregnant 15 year old is to her, not to her parents. How on earth could they expect pregnant teens who for whatever reason won't or can't tell their parents to come forward and get help otherwise?

Look OP, you seem to be under the impression that if the school were forced to notify parents, then what would happen is the girl would discuss it with the school, they would inform the parents, everyone would sit down and while she might still have the abortion, she'll have discussed it through and been supported by her parents who would treat her the same as before.

What's more likely to happen is the girl would start talking to her teacher who would stop her and inform this 15 year old that if she discussed any further the teacher would have to tell her parents. The girl would then not discuss it with the school. If she wanted an abortion, she'd then go see her GP, get her abortion sorted and then go back to home/school pretending nothing's happened and with noone to support her.

YABU, naive and reactionary in your OP which shows no understanding of how such situations are, and should, be handled.

We don't know anything about the girl's specific situation, relationship with her parents, etc etc - but that is all irrelevant anyway. It is right that the law allows for teenage pregnancy to be confidentially dealt with, in general, for the reasons given above (possibility of various kinds of abuse, right of the person in question to make the decision, etc). If it's right for it to be confidentially dealt with in some cases it has to be dealt with in the same way for all such cases (assuming appropriate competence etc).

I'm rather heartened by how many people think the OP is BU, actually. The "notification" is a bit of a red herring I'd say - it could be just as much of a put-off to the girl in question as having to get consent from the parents, as other say.