A Scottish bishop has come out to support the ‘right to know’ campaign being led by single mother Sue Axon, who claims parents are being “undermined” by guidelines which allow girls under 16 to obtain abortions without their parents’ knowledge.
Bishop of Motherwell, Joseph Devine, expressed his support for Mrs Axon’s campaign, in a guest column in the Glasgow Evening Times.He said: “Millions of parents across the country, only a minority of them practising Christians, will be cheering support of Sue Axon’s campaign.”
Bishop Devine said the current policy on teenage pregnancy strikes at the very heart of families and parents’ relationships with their children.
He said: “For the Government, on the one hand, to exhort parents to take more responsibility for their role in bringing up their children, and then, on the other, to cheat on parents by implementing a strategy to keep them in the dark about their teenage daughter's pregnancy, is not only inconsistent and hypocritical. It is perverse and obscene.”
Bishop Devine continued: “No sexual problem scars a child more, physically and mentally, than undergoing an abortion.To propose that a young teenage girl suffers such a trauma without her parents' knowledge, and then to deprive her of their love and support after the deed is done, is one of the most cruel and callous actions one could inflict.
Joseph Devine, Bishop of Motherwell
To propose that a young teenage girl suffers such a trauma without her parents' knowledge, and then to deprive her of their love and support after the deed is done, is one of the most cruel and callous actions one could inflict.”
The Bishop of Motherwell described the Government’s current policy as “crazy”, highlighting that, “Parents’ permission is required before their child at school can be given a pill for a headache. Yet a girl could be led into having a secret abortion without her parents being told”.
He asked: “What right has the Government to keep parents in the dark about the welfare of their children?”
Opponents of Mrs Axon’s campaign argue that compulsory parental notification of their visit will drive teenagers away from services and prevent many of them from coming forward for help, putting them at greater risk of unplanned pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections.
Mrs Axon said: “The Department of Health seems to assume that every parent in Britain is a bad parent and will not support their child if they get themselves in a mess.”
She added: “We have got overwhelming evidence to prove that confidentiality encourages sexual activity.
“We have got a very, very strong case that government strategies are damaging children.”
Mrs Axon’s case has also found the backing of Victoria Gillick who went to court in 1983 in an attempt to block doctors from prescribing contraception to under-16s without parental consent.
The Bishop of Motherwell called on parents to confront their MSPs in regard to this question, describing the Government’s current approach as an “outrage” and “a danger to the young people it claims to respect”.
