"Doctors prescribing the contraceptive pill to teenage schoolgirls will have to tell their headteacher, campaigners against the Scottish Government’s controversial state guardian scheme claimed yesterday."
"The claim was made as a two-day judicial review of the named persons scheme began at The Supreme Court in London."
"The legal action has been taken by campaigners against the proposal contained in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act. They claim it authorises ‘unjustified and unjustifiable state interference with family rights..."
"The case heard in front of five judges at the Supreme Court saw Aidan O’Neill QC appearing on behalf of campaigners including the No To Named Person (NO2NP) group."
"Mr O’Neill was asked by the Lord Reed if a GP prescribing the pill to a teenager would have to tell the girl’s named person, Mr O’Neill answered: `Yes and not be constrained by the duty of confidentiality.` "
"Mr O’Neill then suggested the teenage girl’s parents would not have the right to know, even though the named person – normally a headteacher – would..."
"Mr O’Neill said he would try to avoid using Orwellian language, but likened the scheme to `Big Sister watching out for you`."
"He said: ‘Having four sisters myself it has a certain menace to it. It’s all done in the language of this is all for the good of the child, Scotland will be the best place for a child to grow up.` "
"He added: `In emphasising that they seem to have lost sight that the role of the state is a limited one.` "
"The scheme was defended by James Wolffe QC, who acted on behalf of The Lord Advocate. Mr Wolffe said: `This is the state not going too far, it is seeking to provide support for family life through this particular mechanism.` "
"He claimed the named persons scheme was an `appropriate policy response` to social conditions and said that `action under the legislation will depend on an assessment of wellbeing.` "
Read more: http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/campaigners-raise-concerns-over-state-guardian-scheme-1-4058168#ixzz42WH12Q8j
"The action under the legislation will depend on an assessment of wellbeing."
Yes, that`s the trouble. It could mean `action` triggered by just about anything, and no opt out.
I don`t see how five judges can pass this.
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Having read this article I got a bit of a shock this evening. My granddaughter told me that she had been given her meningitis jab in the afternoon. While she was with the nurse she was asked if she was sexually active, but she was not the only one.
We are talking about under-aged girls and boys 14 and 15 years old being questioned about their sexuality and this coming out of the blue. Now the Named Person debacle has been all over the press and media because of the court case; so the argument about the scheme breaching confidentiality is well known; and the Glasgow City Council had to pull a stunt like this. Needless to say, I was livid.
The kids just joked about it I was told. "That`s not the point," I had to say to my granddaughter. "None of that is their business."
To think that these jobsworths would take advantage of a situation like a routine vaccination, to ask youngsters deeply personal questions in order to put the answers in a file, along with a load of other stuff they might grab, is beyond despicable.
And then they would have the audacity to say, parents have no right to know what is in the file.
THEY had no right to ask. And what are they going to be doing with the information in the file anyway ?
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