Advertise in this spot on CatholicCulture.org. View all ads.

Catholic World News News Feature

Britain allows abortion without parental consent August 04, 2004

New guidelines have made it explicit that girls under 16 years of age do not require parental consent or notification in order to procure an abortion in the United Kingdom. When a 1986 law assured that prescriptions for contraceptives could be given confidentially to girls under 16, abortion was an implicit component of this program. However, the policy came under attack in May, when the mother of a 14-year-old girl learned her daughter had procured an abortion without her knowledge.

"It seems absurd to us that the government is saying parents should be sidelined in this way," Paul Tully, general secretary for the Society for Protection of Unborn Children, told BBC News.

Parents' rights advocate Victoria Gillick said parents will not accept the new guidelines. "They are knocked sideways by the proliferation of advice coming to children about how they can get around their parents and keep them in the dark about their sexual relationships, contraceptive devices, and abortion," she said. Gillick campaigned in 1986 to prevent the measure allowing doctors to prescribe contraceptives to girls under 16.

A UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) document, titled "Unwanted Pregnancy and Unsafe Abortion," published late last year called for sweeping government reform to make abortion available to all women and adolescent girls without restriction, going as far as to suggest that governments should subsidize abortions and offer "redress" to women who have been "denied" access to abortions "that should be made available to them."

The document goes on to reveal the UN plan to mandate access to abortion for a girl of any age without parental consent. The document states, "Wherever the law allows, governments should guarantee the privacy of those seeking abortion services, especially adolescent women."