CARE confidential, the pregnancy crisis service has expressed its grave concerns over government guidelines that allow under-age girls to have access to abortion facilities without their parents’ knowledge.

|TOP|The alarming new crisis in the abortion row has come about after the launch of a High Court case earlier this week.

A mother of five, Sue Axon, has urged the High Court to change the current laws, and is asking for the right to allow parents to know if their children are planning an abortion or being given contraception.

CARE confidential, which networks between 160 separate independent pregnancy care centres has backed the call and asked for government guidelines to be changed.

The head of CARE confidential, Joanna Thompson said, “The current guidelines on under-age abortions only succeed in undermining parental responsibility.

“Whatever a young girl chooses, she needs to have the support of those closest to her. Taking a course of action that encourages a secret cuts her off from any of this support.”

She added, “All teenagers have secrets, but this kind of secret is not good. To hide something so big can lead to a breakdown in the relationship between parent and child.”

Mrs Axon, who is a 51-year old, has two teenage daughters, and has passionately argued that she has the duty to care for them until they are at least 16. However, she has also pointed out that she is blocked in fulfilling this responsibility is she is not allowed to be informed of their medical health and general wellbeing.

|QUOTE|The guidelines were issued by the Department of Health in 2004, and they state that a health professional can offer advice and treatment to young people under the age of 16 “without parental knowledge of consent” on the condition that the child has a full understanding that the advice and the treatment are being given in their best interests.

Recently a controversial British Medical Journal article claimed that pregnancy is more likely to cause depression than abortion and the termination of the pregnancy. However, the comments were disputed greatly by many of the organisations that work in post-abortion counselling.

The Live and Kicking campaign is an alliance recently formed to reduce the number of abortions seen in the UK each year. Abbott said, “Arguments are regularly put forward from both sides of this debate but the evidence of the psychological consequences of abortion remains for us the most compelling. And from our pro-life perspective there will always be something deeply disturbing about anybody trying to prove that pregnancy, rather than termination, is more likely to lead to depression. The close association of Nancy Russo, one of the authors of today's research, with the ProChoice Forum, has not gone unnoticed.”

|AD|She added, “The reality is, however, that we do not wish to see depression associated with any aspect of a woman's child-bearing capacity. Part of our current campaign against abortion is to try and ensure that financial, educational and general social inequalities are addressed positively so that women are never discriminated against when they find themselves pregnant. This has to be a better solution than simply offering to terminate the life of their child and leave women in the same position as before.”

According to Abbott, a recent Alive & Kicking opinion poll has shown that both Parliament and the public have expressed their concerns about abortion in the UK.

The polls show that 81 percent of the public agree that 200,000 abortions a year is excessive, and that something had to be done to help reduce and control this number. Abbott also pointed out that interestingly the poll’s results were greatly supported by women.

Recently the Evangelical Alliance has given its full backing to the Live & Kicking campaign.

The Director of Public Policy at the Evangelical Alliance, R. David Muir said, “This research confirms already existing scientific evidence which suggests that the abortion law has not kept up with knowledge about development in the womb.

“It is particularly interesting and significant that the new poll shows that of those offering an opinion more than six in ten (62%) believe the 24-week abortion limit should be lowered ‘significantly’ given that more than 80% of babies born at that age survive. Among the 18-24 age group support rises to 75% and among women support stands at 66% (compared to 58% of men). The Alive and Kicking campaign commands our full support.”

Thompson concluded, “Most parents do want to support their children and our laws should be about helping them to do that, and not working against them.”

CARE confidential also runs a freephone helpline on 0800 028 2228