MPs have urged the Health Secretary to shut an abortion loophole that permits grooming gangs to cover their sexual abuse of kids.
In light of the recent media coverage surrounding the grooming gangs, MPs have written to Wes Streeting explaining that, in cases wherein grooming gang victims aged 15 or younger have grow to be pregnant, these crimes can more easily be hidden because there isn’t a requirement for abortion providers to notify a parent or guardian before performing an abortion on a toddler.
As the law currently stands, if a woman aged 15 or younger has an abortion, there’s no requirement for the medical professionals involved with the abortion to notify either the girl’s parents or a guardian. Parents don’t have any legal right to be told or consulted before their child has an abortion.
In the letter to the Health Secretary, Carla Lockhart MP explained that a number of the victims of grooming gangs, aged 15 or younger, had been pressured into abortions with “little to no emotional support from those that care about them most”.
She said, “Without doubt, the legal establishment also made it far easier for the vile individuals behind these crimes to hide the evil they’ve inflicted on these vulnerable girls.
“If there have been a legal requirement for parental notification, then it’s much more likely questions would have been asked potentially resulting in the invention of those heinous crimes at an earlier stage.”
In one case in Rochdale, a 13-year-old had an abortion in a hospital in an try to cover up the abuse. In one other case in Oxford, a 12-year-old girl was repeatedly raped and made to have a back-room abortion after falling pregnant.
Father of the House and former minister, Sir Edward Leigh MP, said, “It is difficult to search out words to totally capture the extent of the horror that was visited upon a number of the most vulnerable people in our society consequently of the grooming gangs scandal.
“This has been an appalling failure and it is a few relief that a highlight is now being shone on it. It can be clear that the present abortion laws made it far easier to hide these crimes. They needs to be revisited urgently to stop further catastrophes on this scale.”
Commenting on the letter, former MP and co-chair of the New Conservatives group Miriam Cates said, “As a toddler under 16 cannot legally consent to sex, there’s a high probability that the pregnant girl has been abused. Parents absolutely should be informed if there is a suspicion that their child is being abused. How can that child possibly be kept protected in the event that they are usually not?”
Strong public backlash
There was also strong public backlash after a plotline on Coronation Street revealed that a 14-year-old character was capable of get a secret abortion without her parent’s knowledge.
Members of the general public were shocked to search out out that the plotline reflected the present law where there isn’t a requirement for abortion providers to notify a parent or guardian ahead of performing an abortion.
Changing the law on this area would bring the UK into line with other European countries resembling Portugal, Italy and Spain, which have more robust requirements in regard to parental notification on the subject of girls aged 15 and under having abortions.
Polling on this issue has shown that there is important support for a change within the law. The polling found that 70% of oldsters agree parental or guardian consent needs to be required for ladies aged 15 or under to undergo an abortion.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said, “It’s baffling that the present law includes no requirement for medical professionals to refer abortions of minors to oldsters.
“Without doubt, this permits abuse to go undetected and would have made it easier for the perpetrators of the appalling crimes which have recently been within the highlight, to hide the crimes they carried out so overtly.”Â
