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Mother no longer knows best, high court told

This article is more than 18 years old
· Family planning group defends guidelines
· Woman challenging law has pregnant daughter

The long-held belief among parents that they know what is best for a child is out of date and represents a traditional paternalistic approach that contradicts social changes in western Europe, it was claimed at the high court yesterday.

Nathalie Lieven, representing the Family Planning Association, made the submission in a case involving Sue Axon, 51, a divorced single mother of five who is challenging government guidance allowing doctors to provide abortion or contraception advice to children under 16 without their parents' knowledge.

Ms Lieven argued that parents are no longer necessarily the best people to advise a child on contraception, sexually transmitted infections and abortions - and they have no right to know if their children under 16 are seeking treatment.

"There is no doubt whatsoever that a child has a right to confidentiality," she said on the final day of the three-day hearing. "A parent's rights cannot override a child's rights."

She added: "They may be highly loving parents, or have extremely strict views on underage sex, or extremely strict views on abortion, or teenagers having babies," she said. Even in a perfectly loving family such factors might lead a child to feel she did not want to tell her parents in case family relationships were damaged.

But Philip Havers QC, for Mrs Axon, claimed the public would find the FPA view "astonishing". "I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of people in this country would support the proposition that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the best judges of a child's welfare are his or her parents," he said, adding that most people would be astonished to be told that view was out of date.

"One can ask the question, if parents are not the best people to advise their child - who is? Is it the FPA? Is it social workers?"

In a further twist, Mrs Axon's solicitor, Paul Contrathe, confirmed that her 16-year-old daughter is pregnant and the baby is due in March. "This goes to show that this case is more than a hypothetical interest to my client," he said. Mrs Axon, of Baguley, Manchester, had told the hearing she was prompted to make the legal challenge after a termination she had 20 years ago caused her "guilt, shame and depression for many years".

But she told the Daily Mail she was proud her daughter had confided in her about the pregnancy and that the experience had reinforced her campaign. "It backs up my case, that this is what is happening with young girls who are having sex and getting pregnant because it is there for them on a plate," she said. "The confidentiality policy gives them the confidence to have sex underage, knowing that they won't have to tell their parents.

"I think that may have been a factor in my daughter having a sexual relationship at such a young age."

Mrs Axon launched the proceedings more than a year ago. At the time, she stressed that neither of her teenage daughters had sought abortions.

Her barrister had previously argued that family life depended upon relationships of "trust and openness and respect and transparency between family members - not on secrecy, or what might have to be lies on the part of children in relation to what they are doing".

Mrs Axon's case centres on the notion that Department of Health guidelines issued last year contradict a Lords ruling in the Victoria Gillick case of 1985. While the law lords said it would be "most unusual" for a doctor to advise a child on contraception without parents' knowledge or consent, the guidance says involving parents should be the exception not the rule.

But lawyers for the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, are insisting the right of confidentiality enjoyed by under-16s is crucial in the battle to reduce teen pregnancies and improve their sexual health.

Mr Justice Silber reserved judgment.

Backstory

Victoria Gillick, a mother of 10 from Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, began a campaign against a DHSS guidance circular in 1980 permitting confidential contraceptive treatment of under-16s without parental consent in exceptional circumstances. Her case was dismissed in the high court in 1983 but this was overturned by the appeal court the following year. The circular was declared illegal and the court ruled that none of Mrs Gillick's five daughters, then under 16, should be given advice or treatment on abortion or contraception without parental consent, except in an emergency or by leave of the courts. The issue was settled in October 1985 when the law lords upheld the right of doctors to prescribe contraceptives to girls under 16 without the consent of their parents. In 2002 Mrs Gillick was working as a voluntary pregnancy advisory councillor in the UK - the country with the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe.

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