Schools Helping Kids Get Secret Abortions?

[Geoff]

I'm not talking about what she should do. But, counselors and medical professionals should involve the parents and/or legal guardians in any medical decision of a minor who is their responsibility.

As someone else has already pointed out, a minor is (quite rightly, IMO) entitled to go on the pill without parental consent. That includes the "morning after" pill, which is essentially an early abortion. That's a medical decision, too.

[Coito ergo sum]

I'm not talking about what she should do. But, counselors and medical professionals should involve the parents and/or legal guardians in any medical decision of a minor who is their responsibility.

As someone else has already pointed out, a minor is (quite rightly, IMO) entitled to go on the pill without parental consent. That includes the "morning after" pill, which is essentially an early abortion. That's a medical decision, too.

That depends how old the minor is.

[Geoff]

I'm not talking about what she should do. But, counselors and medical professionals should involve the parents and/or legal guardians in any medical decision of a minor who is their responsibility.

As someone else has already pointed out, a minor is (quite rightly, IMO) entitled to go on the pill without parental consent. That includes the "morning after" pill, which is essentially an early abortion. That's a medical decision, too.

That depends how old the minor is.

No, it doesn't.

http://www.gpnotebook.co.uk/simplepage. ... 5930411760

The Family Law Reform Act 1969 states:

Consent to medical treatment can be given by a child under the age of 16 if s/he is 'Gillick competent'

children under the age of 16 can consent to medical treatment if they have sufficient maturity and judgement to enable them fully to understand what is proposed. This was clarified in England and Wales by the House of Lords in the case of Gillick vs West Norfolk and Wisbech AHA & DHSS in 1985

In making his judgement the Law Lord, Lord Fraser, offered a set of criteria which must apply when medical practitioners are offering contraceptive services to under 16's without parental knowledge or permission. The so-called Fraser Guidelines (some people refer to assessing whether the young person is Gillick competent) state that all the following requirements should be fulfilled:

the young person will understand the professional's advice
the young person cannot be persuaded to inform their parents
the young person is likely to begin, or to continue having, sexual intercourse with or without contraceptive treatment
unless the young person receives contraceptive treatment, their physical or mental health, or both, are likely to suffer
the young person's best interests require them to receive contraceptive advice or treatment with or without parental consent

Notes:

although these criteria specifically refer to contraception, the principles are deemed to apply to other treatments, including abortion
the Fraser guidelines referred specifically to doctors but it is considered to apply to other health professionals, including nurses. It may also be interpreted as covering youth workers and health promotion workers who may be giving contraceptive advice and condoms to young people under 16, but this has not been tested in court

Note that no lower age limit is specified in law.

[Coito ergo sum]

I'm not talking about what she should do. But, counselors and medical professionals should involve the parents and/or legal guardians in any medical decision of a minor who is their responsibility.

As someone else has already pointed out, a minor is (quite rightly, IMO) entitled to go on the pill without parental consent. That includes the "morning after" pill, which is essentially an early abortion. That's a medical decision, too.

That depends how old the minor is.

No, it doesn't.

I should have said that depending on the jurisdiction, it depends how old the minor is.

And, I would suggest that it ought to so depend.

[Seth]

I think we more or less agree. But I don't think a teen has a legal obligation to tell their parents everything, do they? A teen can't be taken to court and found guilty for not answering a question their parents ask them. Even if the teen was witness to a murder say, they still have no obligation to tell their parents. They have a legal obligation to tell the police/prosecutors, but not their parents, surely?

I don't know that there is a "legal obligation" for a teen to tell a secret to her parents in the same way that she may be compelled to testify in court in a criminal or civil case, but that's not really the issue. The issue is whether the teen has legal PROTECTION in keeping secrets from her parents. In other words, while the law may not compel the teen to reveal a secret, does the law compel the parents not to seek answers or "invade the privacy" of the teen. I think the answer is no, teens do not have a right of privacy as against their parents.

Now, there are laws which prohibit physicians or other officials from violating the teen's right to privacy by revealing information to parents that the teen may have revealed in confidence. I happen to think that these laws are questionable at best, given the parents legal liability for the teen's health, safety and welfare.

But that's not really even the point of the thread. A teenage girl may reveal to a school counselor that she is pregnant and may express a desire for advice on what to do. In my view, while the counselor may be required to keep the information about the pregnancy confidential, I do not think it's appropriate for the counselor to provide any advice regarding the pregnancy AT ALL. Pregnancy is a medical condition, and any advice about a teen pregnancy should come from a medical professional, not a school counselor. Thus, the counselor should be required to tell the teen that for any information about pregnancy, abortion, or any other medical issue, she must go to a doctor for advice, or to her parents. And that should be the extent of a school counselor's advice to a pregnant teen.

[Seth]

It would seem to me that the parents have the welfare of the child most at heart.

It would seem that way if you lived in a dream world. Many parents do not have the welfare of the child in mind. As an example, some parents only have a child so that they can be ON welfare.
Remember, this is reality, Coito ergo sum.

Eh?!? I'm sorry, but that's not reality. Maybe in FundyLand, but not in the vast majority of cases. Parents do care about their kids. Some are misguided in that caring, but most do care about their kids. To default to the position that the parents are evil ogres who will force the kid to have a child is cynical at best.

Sorry, but I live in reality, with warts and everything. There are MANY kinds of parents. I am not defaulting to the 'parents are evil' position, but acknowledging the reality of it. If you have good parents in charge of this kid, very little harm was done. If the parents WERE 'evil', then MUCH harm (such as the girl being forced to go through with it - YES this happens) could be done.

I agree that you are hyperbolizing the situation. Yes, there are many kinds of parents, but the number that abuse their children or don't care about their welfare is a small percentage of all parents, and it is indeed inappropriate for the law to take the position that parents are evil ogres as the default. Yes, the law needs to provide avenues of appeal for pregnant teenagers who are being physically harmed by their parents, in either direction, as the result of pregnancy. And most abortion laws in the US have such an avenue of appeal. Teens who are being prevented from having an abortion by their parents, or who are being forced to have an abortion, can appeal to the courts in most jurisdictions to have a neutral arbiter examine the situation and render a ruling. That's an appropriate role for the courts in such situations.

But the default must always be that the parents are in charge of the health, safety and welfare of a minor child. Now, if the legal age of majority in your country is 16, then that's the legal age of majority and the child is no longer a child and is no longer under the dominion of the parents, so the parents have no say in the matter. But we're not discussing that, we're discussing who is in control of minor children and their reproductive health, and that should always default to the parents absent some evidence that the parents are harming the child by making the decisions they are making.

[Seth]

So Coito, do you think parents should be asked before their 16-year old children have sex?

Are they a minor child under the dominion of the parents and living at home in the jurisdiction?

Then yes, all decisions, especially decisions about having sex, are up to the parents, who have a perfect right to lock the girl in a bedroom to keep her from going out and having sex, not that this is a practical solution.

The parents are LEGALLY LIABLE for the conduct, health, safety and welfare of minor children, and that legal obligation grants to them substantial authority to direct and control the activities of the child, up to and including reasonable and appropriate physical restraint to prevent the child from coming to harm or harming others, and up to and including reasonable and appropriate discipline to enforce the rules the parents lay down.

And I hasten to add that I mean "reasonable and appropriate" because it will inevitably come up that restraining a child, or disciplining a child is thought by some to always be unreasonable and inappropriate, and that some believe any interference with the sovereign will of a child, such as disciplining or restraining them, qualifies as child abuse, and I really don't want to derail into that discussion in this thread.

That being said, if society is willing to absolve the parents of all legal liability for the actions of their 13 year old girl, and is willing to emancipate that girl, then she can screw whom she chooses and suffer the consequences of her actions and I'll have no complaint. But so long as the parents are legally liable (or financially liable) then they must be in control and the law must grant them sufficient authority to enforce that legal control, just as society enforces legal controls on adults using discipline and restraint.

[Coito ergo sum]

So Coito, do you think parents should be asked before their 16-year old children have sex?

That's not really the issue. A more appropriate analogy would be - "So, Coito, do you think that if a school guidance counselor learns that the student wants to have sex, and doesn't want her parents to know about it, that the school counselor should not only keep the matter quiet, but facilitate a liaison between the young girl and sex partner." That would be more analogous to what we are actually talking about.

People seem to be muddling what the child is allowed or able to do, and what a public school employee ought to do. Yes, I do think a counselor should tell parents of a child's stated intent to go find someone to have sex with. There may be, depending on the circumstances, a need for someone to educate the child and provide advice, solace, help, parental guidance, etc., to a child in these circumstances.

So as not to be accused of dodging your specific question, I do think that a 16 year old "should" discuss sex with their parents, in general, before having it, and a healthy parent-child relationship, in my view, entails such openness. I don't think that it should be a legal mandate or a punishable offense, however, for a 16 year old not to tell their parents before they have sex.

[Geoff]

But that's not really even the point of the thread. A teenage girl may reveal to a school counselor that she is pregnant and may express a desire for advice on what to do. In my view, while the counselor may be required to keep the information about the pregnancy confidential, I do not think it's appropriate for the counselor to provide any advice regarding the pregnancy AT ALL. Pregnancy is a medical condition, and any advice about a teen pregnancy should come from a medical professional, not a school counselor. Thus, the counselor should be required to tell the teen that for any information about pregnancy, abortion, or any other medical issue, she must go to a doctor for advice, or to her parents. And that should be the extent of a school counselor's advice to a pregnant teen.

And, to get back to the original article in the OP, that's exactly what happened:

But Helen confronted her daughter's friends, who said the counsellor had taken the girl for a scan and to doctors. "I didn't know that they could do that."

Helen said teachers could discuss how a student was doing in school or phone parents when their child misbehaved, but would then keep life-changing situations such as abortions secret.

Her daughter had since told her the counsellor "wasn't very forthcoming" with advice.