Mother challenges child abortion rules

[monkeytrousers]

here

has this thing kicked off yet?

all mumsnet has gone chicken sh*t!

Nosey old mothers eh

ok

i'd be gutted if my 14 year old had an abortion without feeling she could talk to me

but I bet it will put a whole lot of girls off having one if their parents have to be told.

just another arguement for frank sexual education from an early age IMO

I agree with Enid.

So do I.

Except I bet it will lead to a whole load of girls having unwanted babies beccause they daren't tell and wait too long.

And therefore consequences that the parents like even less. Interrupted education, post-adoption trauma, grandparents having to take respnsibility for more than they bargained for...

Maybe parents have to take responsibility for being the kind of parents their daughters couldn't talk to!

Enid - you are right as usual.

I think its more important for Mothers to do their best to be approachable to their teenage children and make sure they feel that they can talk to them instead of trying to get the law to insist their children have to talk to them.

I guess i am saying that Mums who are oppose the current laws feel more agrieved (sp?) that their daughter couldnt/wouldnt speak to them in the first place than for the welfare of their teenager IYSWIM.

May i be flamed forever more!

I'm with Enid too. I hope that my DD would be able to tell me and trust that I would be supportive rather than just angry and judgemental (well, actually I hope she isn't have sex, let alone unprotected sex under 16 but thats another debate!). Plenty of girls won't be in that postion, and I'd hate them to avoid GPs and end up with a baby they can't deal with or feeling forced to try DIY methods of abortion

Yes, I agree.

But I'm not sure what they mean by abortion. Wasn't there a flurry of media stories a few months ago about the morning after pill being defined as an 'abortion' pill?

Message withdrawn

I think that parents should be informed - what if the "child" goes in for the procedure and complications follow or something goes wrong.

i hope my dd would tell me - but i think there has to be something like this in place where a 13 or 14 year old can go without parents knowledge.

i think there has to be a lower age limit set, i dont know what this would be - am thinking 12.

after all i think if a 10 year old got pregnant - which i know they do - i think wider questions would have to be asked.

I think that's the paradox, isn't it? Most of us would want our children to be able to talk to us, and would see it as a failure of ours if they couldn't. afaik, they do work very hard in counselling to encourage girls to tell, but if they won't, the options can be very bleak.

I used to be Chair of a homeless-related charity. Lots of young girls were homeless because they had been pregnant, and desparately wnated an abortion and their parents were anti-abortion in any circumstances. Or the parents threw them out having been made aware of the pregnancy.

This is such a hard subject, I can see it from both sides. But the problem with ignoring the mother(parents??) is that they are effectively having their rights to parent their child taken away. If the state doesn't trust people to parent their own child adequately in those circumstances, why should there there be any trust in parents in other fields? It just means all parents are being tarred with the same 'untrustworthy' brush, imo.

as I understand the news coverage, the Claimant is look for far more wide reaching parents rights than parents being informed about abortion - it would require parents being informed about sexual health advice from health professionals too, which would be likely to increase teenage pregnancies.

And my worry would be 'whn is my child still a child, and when old enough to have a sexual relationship'

I am a fairly open minded person and would deeply hope that my children could talk to me freely about sex and relationships. I profoundly hope that when my children get older I will be capable of accepting that they are maturing. I want to accept when they are old enough to be sexualy active. So my worry would be, what if I were not to be told of this when my dd was 12 or 13. She might be pressured inot having sex, or might not be fully ready,

Allong with those worries are the other concerns about the effects of having sex too early on, both physicaly and emotionaly.

This is a real mine field subject IMHO.

It would be the aftercare for me too, being at home perhaps and having a complication and "her" parents not knowing - I would hope that in such cases that the abortion provider would make sure a responsible "guardian" style person would be in charge of her for at least 48 hrs.
I fully intend for my dd to be able to talk to me about such things, whether she intends I do not know, I think that secrecy indictaes the state of the relationship between a parent and a child perhaps.
I would be gutted if it happened and was not there to support and counsel her.
But for some girls this has to be an option I think.

it seems crazy that a child can't have an appendix removed without parental consent but can have a baby removed!

I think abortion ADVICE should be confidential and freely and easily accessible to everyone with conselling regardless of age, but given that I had to get my Rainbow Guide's parents to sign a form OKing emergency medical treatment without parental consent, how can they perform elective treatment on a person who is LEGALLY a child without that consent?

As a teenage girl, i could barely make a decision over what to wear, made huge mistakes in my career choice.... there's no way I could have made a decision such as this on my own.

That's not even counting in the possibilities of sexual abuse (these kids are after all under age) going undiscovered, medical complications with little support, psychological problems with no support....

I don't haev a daughter I admit, but if I ever got one or my boys fathered a child when the Mum was too young to care for the baby, I would take that child in as my responsibility. If my son's needed help with a child they had fathered, it would be there in whatever form it was required.

Message withdrawn

that is correct Pruni

But that's one of the emotive buttons isn't it? It's not a baby! It's a few cells, an embryo. To tell a young teenager that they're 'removing a baby' will cause them all kinds of emotional trauma. I know you might not have meant it literally but 'kids' have very active imaginations and it's also how the pro-life brigade sow the seeds of guilt and suspicion into the public consciousness.

Personally I think there should be totally confidential advice given at all times, but advice is not an abortion.

What would interest me is how many cases of under 16 abortions have actually be done without parental consent? My guess would be very very few. I am sure, since all women have to get two signatures and (however rudimentary) councelling, before abortion, then THIS is the time for the consent issue to be brought in.

Teen girls, no matter HOW good relationship they have. DON'T talk to their mothers. It is part of growing up. It is all well to look at the rosy future of my girls will always come to me first, but I am realistic I am the LAST person they will come to.

I think Blu's post is very eloquent. Of course we all hope our own children would tell us if, God forbid, anything like this happened to them. But confidential advice and treatment has to be there for kids who can't tell their parents, for whatever reason - because they'd be thrown out on the streets, for instance. I knew someone who was thrown out by her father for getting pregnant at age 16.

In extreme circumstances it could be the case that a child is being sexually abused by a family member. If doctors were forced to tell the parents, it could put these children in even more danger, sadly.

Under-age pregnancy is a special case, I think. Yes, parents usually have to consent to medical treatment, but there are good and compelling reasons why an exemption is needed for pregnancy.