high court to rule on parental consent for abortions

[me23]

today will decide if girls under 16 should be allowed abortion without parents consent.
what do you think?
should they be allowed?

[Aloha]

Right, that's it, I'm off!

[expatinscotland]

They could explain the suckling as breastfeeding .

[Pruni]

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[hunkermunker]

PMSL at banana BJs and frottage lessons.

[Aloha]

Well, I just thought it was something you and MI could offer as a purely educational service to the sixth form

(it's late!)

[Pruni]

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[serenity]

How can more education be a bad thing? at the idea of education being bad!

[Aloha]

From what I gather in the Daily Mail quite a few female teachers are offering very hands-on, practical lessons in sex education these days....

[Pruni]

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[motherinferior]

OK, that's our careers sorted, then.

[Pruni]

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[motherinferior]

Sorry...

I seriously think a lot more education about non-penetrative sex ('now, class, it's blow-jobs today, I'm going to give each of you a banana') would be a very good thing, from lots of points of view

[Pruni]

Message withdrawn

[expatinscotland]

I hope my daughters feel comfortable talking to me about sex and birth control. I'll certainly bring it up. But if they don't, I'd hope there'd be some place they'd be able to get reliable, accurate information.

Abortion is a personal decision. End of. Whether the female is under 16 or 50.

[Aloha]

Some parents would - quite literally - kill their daughter if they knew she was pregnant. Should we tell them?

[motherinferior]

I understood that we had very low levels of sex ed in the UK, compared to countries with a much lower teenage pregnancy rate.

Young people are going to want to have sex. We all wanted to. Many of us did. They're biologically programmed to want it, and their hormones are shouting GROPE! SNOG! SEX! at them 24/7. IMO the more information they have about contraception options - and come to that sexual activity which will not lead to pregnancy - the better. And of course it should be confidential.

[Pruni]

Message withdrawn

[nooka]

wannaBe1974 every case is judged on it's merits, and that's really the point of the legislation in this area (Gillick). Of course at 14 no-one is able to make this sort of decision without the support of an adult, but as any advice/treatment will be given by an adult these kids are being supported (the guidance is this area is very prescriptive, in fact), it's just that in some circumstances the child may not wish for that adult to be their parent. paolosgirl I would agree with you that schools not giving calpol/plasters is plain silly, but that is school policy, and not nationally set. Evidence from around the world suggests that sex education is the only thing tht makes a difference to teenage pregnancy rates. Oh, and most abortions are not surgical, and just involve taking a pill. I don't really disagree with you overall, as of course I would want to know if my daughter was in trouble, but all services do encourage the child to talk to their parents, and I would see it as my failure as a parent if my child was able to persuade someone else that they felt unable to talk to me.

[paolosgirl]

Absolutely agree, Wannabe. The vast amount of sex education we have in this country has done nothing to reduce the rate of teenage pregnancy or STD's - in fact, both are on the increase - and yet the 'experts' seem to think the answer is to throw MORE education at kids

Your point about the plasters is spot on. I can't ask the school to give my DD a plaster or calpol, but a school nurse (and I work with a lot of them - am not impressed overall)can advise and help my dd to abort without MY knowledge? What if there were complications or worse???? I wouldn't even know that my daughter was in having surgery, and yet a school nurse would. It is not on.

[homemama]

The school nurse wouldn't arrange an abortion, just give a girl all the options available to her. If a teenage girl felt that the health worker would tell her parents then she would just try and get the information by herself or pretend it wasn't happening until her mother noticed when she was 7mths pregnant.

Sex education and advice on contraception does not encourage teenagers to have sex. It just makes it safer if they chose to do so.

[wannaBe1974]

I disagree totally. I think each case should be judged on its own merrits, and I think that at 14 a young girl is not mature enough to be able to make a decision like that without the guidance of an adult. As parents we have to sign a consent to allow a school to put a plaster on a cut, and yet we're not allowed to be involved in perhaps the most devostating time of a young girl's life if she gets pregnant? It's all wrong. I know there are some parents out there who would react in a bad way if their daughters got pregnant, but I do think that those type of parents are in the minority.

Currently the age of consent is 16, and it is 16 because children (and let's face it that at 14 they are still children) are not considered to be mature enough to enter into a sexual relationship, and yet our children are given advice about contraception, allowed to have terminations, and maybe god forbit allowed to go through pregnancies and potentially give their children up for adoption without the knowledge of their parents? What kind of a society is it we are living in that condones teenage children having sex and aborting babies at will - no wonder we have one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the world.

[uwila]

I think that I would be even more opposed to parents being notified about birth control. The result would surely be an increase in pregnancies due to teenagers not having the access to birth control.

[homemama]

Pruni is right. The abortion bit is just to make headlines. The mother wanted a ruling which said that underage girls could not be given advice by a school councellor (inc info about abortion) without the parents consent.

These school health workers/pastoral teachers spend a lot of time and energy building up trust with the teenagers they make themselves available too. These kids must be able to feel that they can gain impartial and more importantly accurate advice about very distressing subjects. If teenagers felt there was nowhere to turn many may make a far more horrific choice.

I don't have daughters but having been a teenage daughter myself I know how difficult it is to talk to your parents regardless of how good a relationship you have with them. I would feel much more comfortable knowing that my daughter had someone offering her support and guidance rather than imagining her making a lonely, terrified decision.

[izzybiz]

i did get pregnant at 16, and i was lucky that i had wonderful support from my parents and family. my dad found it very hard but would never disown me or tell me what to do, once my Ds was born he absolutley adored him. but like i say i was very lucky, not all girls have that kind of relationship.
i think its a very difficult one to judge, maybe doctors could try and judge the situation and ensure that these girls get some care afterwards.
i have also had to have a termination quite recently for medical reasons, and wasnt offered any counciling atall.

[Heathcliffscathy]

the decision to keep the law as it stands was the right one imo