Mother’s abortion challenge

BY SIMON CALDWELL
A MOTHER has won the right
to challenge the Government’s policy of offering secret abortions to pregnant schoolgirls.
Sue Axon, who has two daughters aged 12 and 15 years, has been granted a judicial review of the practice of providing abortions to girls under the age of 16 years without their parents knowledge or consent. It is likely to go ahead in the High Court next spring.
Mrs Axon, 50, of Manchester, said: “If my daughters need their appendix out the doctors must ask me first — but not if they want an abortion. It is totally wrong.” Her case is similar to that brought against the Government by Victoria Gillick in the mid-1980s.
Mrs Gillick wanted the practice of giving contraceptive pills to schoolgirls without parental knowledge to be declared illegal. She eventually lost her case in the House of Lords. In July of this year, however, the Department of Health revised its guidelines to doctors to encourage them to carry out abortions on schoolgirls without parental knowledge or consent.
Mrs Axon claims the move is illegal because the law lords in the Gillick case ruled that only in “exceptional circumstances” should treatment be offered to children without the consent of their parents.
Mrs Axon also believes that the guidance is an affront to her right to respect for her private and family life under the European Convention on Human Rights.
A spokesman for the Family Planning Association (FPA) said it was “disappointing” that the review would go ahead.
But Nuala Scarisbrick of Life, the pro-life counselling charity, welcomed Mrs Axon’s challenge. She said: “She will be acting for every caring parent in the UK.” Mrs Scarisbrick added: “Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe. Government strategy implemented by the FPA, Brook and others, is not working. Today’s schoolchildren are being bombarded with ‘information’ which leads them to believe it is okay to have sex. It is not. Children should not be having sex and should be enjoying their childhoods.
“The vital role of the family in all this is being overlooked. Children are being treated as mini-adults, capable of making informed decisions ‘provided they get the right information’.
“It is not sexually explicit information they need but guidance and encouragement to say no to sex and to pursue age-appropriate activities. Parents are crying out to do this but their role is increasingly being usurped by the Government. Our children are being badly let down.”