Madam, – Your Editorial (December 9th), dealt with the issue of whether teenagers as young as 14 should be given contraception by doctors without parental consent.
You rightly point out that conflicts can arise in this regard but you recommend that the way to avoid such conflicts is to cut parents out of the picture and permit doctors to prescribe the Pill, etc, to 14- and 15-year-old girls without the permission of their parents.
I wonder how many parents would be happy with such a scenario? A Red C poll commissioned by the Iona Institute in March showed that 77 per cent of people opposed such a move.
Essentially, you are recommending that Ireland follow the British example where it has been the practice for years to prescribe contraception to minors without parental consent.
However, what you fail to point out is that in England and Wales the pregnancy rate for teenage girls under 16 is six times higher than the rate in this country.
The much higher rate of pregnancy in this age group in England and Wales can’t necessarily be attributed directly to British policy regarding the prescription of contraception, but at the very least it shows that the British approach simply hasn’t worked and we would be foolish in the extreme to copy it. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I welcome your Editorial (December 9th) urging the Government to address the content of the Law Reform Commission’s comprehensive document on consent by minors for treatment. The current debate is about contraceptive advice, an issue that was resolved in the UK in the 1980s. However it must be noted that minors, aged 16 and 17, with mental health needs are currently denied the opportunity to give consent for psychiatric assessment and treatment due to its omission from the The Non-fatal Offences against the Person Act 1997 which deems 16-year-olds competent to consent for medical, surgical and dental procedures. – Yours, etc,