UK Teens given birth control without parental consent

posted at 1:39 pm on February 8, 2012 by Howard Portnoy

And you thought handing out condoms to middle schoolers was obscene! It’s mere child’s play in the view of Britain’s National Health Service. For the past three years, the state-run medical agency has been administering contraceptives at school to females as young as 13. And they have been doing it without parents’ knowledge, reports The Telegraph.

And it ain’t just pills, either. Some of the girls were given contraceptive implants, while others received hormones via injection.

A spokesperson for NHS is quoted as saying:

We are committed to ensuring local young people are able to access clinically appropriate sexual health support.This helps them to avoid unwanted pregnancies and protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections.

But not all parents are grateful. One told The Telegraph:

I agree that teaching teenagers about sexual health and contraception is very important, but this is a step too far. To perform a minor surgical procedure on school grounds without parents knowing is morally wrong. I cannot understand how this is allowed to happen.

But NHS managers are claiming the measures have been an unqualified success. According to their figures, they fitted out 1,700 girls aged 13 and 14 with implants last year, while another 800 received injections. In the time since, teenage pregnancies have dropped by 22%.

In addition, it’s not as though the girls weren’t themselves asked to sign a consent form or subject to a full medical history.

Related Articles

Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook. You can reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.com or by posting a comment below.

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Trackbacks/Pings

Trackback URL

Comments

I wonder, in Britain, can kids get their ears pierced without parental permission?

rbj on February 8, 2012 at 2:39 PM

While the moral and parental authority issues are huge – There is a larger issue of the health and welfare of these girls. These “procedures” come with significant risk of short and longterm health effects, ranging from hemorrhaging to sterility. I doubt that these girls are sophisticated enough to understand or possess knowledge of their family’s health and ethnic history and how it may affect their sensitivity to these pharmaceuticals. Since the school has encouraged secrecy from the parents, the girls might be hesitant to disclose it themselves or appreciate the dangers of drug interactions, but the scariest thing here is that the parent is unaware of the “procedure” and therefore would be unable to alert medical personnel in the event of an emergency.

2nd Ammendment Mother on February 8, 2012 at 2:59 PM

I think the really egregious thing about this, from the perspective of the most people, is that it’s an implant. I might almost revise the title to add the word “implant.” The state is putting things inside people’s 13-year-old daughters without even mentioning it to the parents.

This is not nearly as far from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World as we might “feel” like it is. Huxley and Orwell were right. This kind of intrusive statism creeps up on us while we still feel like things are normal.

J.E. Dyer on February 8, 2012 at 3:03 PM

Death to Tyrants.

teacherman on February 8, 2012 at 3:51 PM

If you think this kind of thing is only happening in UK schools, think again.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2010/05/figures-highland-school-official-wont-send-students-to-arizona-but-shell-send-them-to-secret-gay-sex-classes/

Sterling Holobyte on February 8, 2012 at 6:13 PM

How soon you think liberals will try what the UK is doing here, on second thought has anyone fully checked out the Obama care bill, something like this from the UK seens to me like something the liberals would have put into Obama care and bury in somewhere in the 2000 pages. Implating birthcontrol in young girls without the parents knowldge or consent would not trouble liberals in the least. Remember liberals foolishly deem themselves smarter than everyone anyways, and therfore believe that they should be able to overrule a childs parents objections. Hay don’t forget liberals got angery and spit fire over minor childrens parents objecting to, said minor child undergoing a abortion without consent of said parents.

Beastdogs on February 9, 2012 at 9:29 AM

does the consent of a 13 year old have any meaning? imagine a teacher trying to beat a statutory rape charge with that claim.

eliyahug on February 9, 2012 at 1:04 PM

The state can only take what parents give up.

Marcola on February 9, 2012 at 1:41 PM

An implant or other pharmaceutical birth control measure has no effect on sexually transmitted diseases (unless pregnancy is defined as a disease). As a result the false claim of “the Ministry” that it helps