I just read this piece in the [UK] Daily Mail online and it made me flipping mad.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2097662/Parents-furious-girls-13-given-contraceptive-implants-school-knowledge.html

This is so WRONG imo on many levels - for a start, sex under 16 is illegal in the UK and anyone caught having sex with a minor is technically [legally] guilty of rape

But the really appalling thing is the usurping of parental rights by the National Health Service - a state quasi-monopoly, certainly in state schools. This is one real downside to a universal public health system

Do you know of other examples where parents' rights are trampled on like this? And what do you think of this one - is it justifiable in an attempt to bring down our very high levels of teenage pregnancy?

What aspects of this are Pluto in Cap, I wonder!?

Damn! option 4 should have been 18, not 19! Can't edit it

Please vote as for 18...

I think such methods are used in under developped countries where democracy is a dream.If I were a parent and they did this to my daughter I would be pissed and actually consider moving, because if they do this thinking "the parents don't need to know" just what else are they doing incognito to our children.

I think it's unethical and immoral on so many levels and I hope the NHS ends up paying a huge sum to all the "victimes" of their policy.

What struck me even more is that any kind of medicine can cause damage.We don't know what an even more irregular period can do to the reproductive system of a 13-year old girl.And the bone thining, do we really want young girls to suffer from osteoporosis or any other bone disease and incapacitate them for work from the start?

This just disgusts me.

I mean, yes we should battle teenage pregnancy.With all the contraception on this world they still don't know what they're doing.I don't wether such a high pregnancy rate is because we don't shove the importance of contraception down their throats enough or are they to stupid to figure out how to put on a condom.Nevertheless, this is not the way to reduce teenage pregnancy.Do they have a tactic like this against STD-s?!

I believe the higher teenage pregnacy rate is due to lack of communication from parent to child. If you rule with an iron fist and just leave it as "don't do it" - they will have a careless attitude toward it or rebel against your rules. If you communicate to them the reasons why it's not appropriate at their age, they may take notice. If you talk with them about the importance of protection, they may tune you out but by giving examples of the outcome if it's not used you have them think of other things besides raging hormones.

As for anyone trying to trample on my parental rights? I WILL stand up and say something against it. I believe authorities should get involved in a case by case basis - not lump everyone together like sheep.

I encourage a lot of independance in my children but keep a close eye on them and make sure that the choices they are making will not be harmful to them. You have to give them enough rope to venture out but keep a hold on one end when they need to be roped back in. Both of them (teenagers) are very open with me and I find that a blessing. However, they were taught since they were little that  what they don't tell me, I'll find out about or I'll just "know".

I vote Libra:  Kids and parents need to make those decisions together, and the state needs to stay out of it altogether.

I'm talking about a "normal" family situation.  There's many shades of gray because there's so many different family circumstances....in my own, I'd say HELL NO and fight this tooth and nail!

I voted "option #4"..... because parents are held "Legally Responsible" for their children's actions until age 18. At least according to the law.

Option #3 was pretty darn tempting.... I think it's ancient Jewish law that holds kids as "adults" when their old enough the breed (age 12 , I think). Could be wrong.

Hormonal birth control can negatively affect a woman's health, let alone a young girl. (It was poison for me and I'd never take it again, and my kid gets my genes.) Anything health related should be run by parents first. I would be furious over this.

Dolce made my point - hormonal birth control is dodgy for a lot of grown women.  I can't imagine what it might do to an adolescent girl.  This is just horrible - and what 13 year old knows enough about herself or science/medicine/biology to understand those risks?  Hell I bet most *parents* don't understand them.  Deffo not cool.

As for option 4, I would have to ask: who decides if their overall health is at risk?  At risk for what?  

I guess it's obvious how I voted.  Heh.

More on this from the Telegraph, a 'broadsheet' ie more upmarket newspaper, with reaction from the mother. It beggars belief that parents are so supine over stuff like this - I find her reaction bizarre.

She's obviously condoning her 13yr old daughter having sex 

On the other hand, girls were routinely married at or just beofre puberty in past centuries, when women rarely lived until they were 30 (due illness and esp death in childbirth). We are probably too protective in the West. I still think 16 is the right age for young women to take control over their own bodies, given they've had access to the proper information. Many don't of course.

For me this isn't just aobut the health issues, or those of parental control. It's also about the condoning and even encouragement of the sexualisation of children. A 13yr old is still a child

It's strange to think how things have changed so fast - when I was a teenager, there was no question of 13>15 yr olds having sex, kids just didn't do it. I mean, because NOBODY did it, nobody did it. Even kids having sex at 16 or 17 was considered very shocking - until about 1966 when I was 20, sex before marriage was not at all the norm

Hormonal birth control messed me up as an ADULT.  The hormones from the Patch triggered my dormant pure-O OCD - but the two benefits were getting properly diagnosed and getting off that shit.

No way would I let a teenager on anything like that without my knowledge!

I can't take B/C either - gives me blood clots.

When I first tried birth control the methods were much more limited than now and so after my experiments with several of the hormonal ones I just quit. I am sensitive to meds in general and I became very ill.

The shot was scary - the risk of infertility.

Those were basically to the only two offered at the time.

So I never used it again and yeah, I got pregnant a long time down the road but even then I took Plan B and it didn't work.

My mom never talked to me about sex, only gave me some mild books on puberty (growing breasts and shaving and such). I won't repeat this mistake.