33,000 underage girls given contraception

FAMILY campaigners erupted with fury yesterday at figures showing the huge number of underage girls given contraceptive implants and injections without parental consent.

More than 33,000 girls aged 15 and below received the treatment unknown to their parents over the last four years. The age of consent is 16.

Campaigners are now calling for a review of “professional attitudes” towards underage sex.

The figures were released by the Government’s Health & Social Care Information Centre and show the extent to which NHS health clinics are giving “long- acting” contraceptives to young girls.

Norman Wells, of the Family Education Trust, said: “Not only are these community contraceptive clinics condoning unlawful sexual activity and undermining parents, but they are also placing young teenagers at risk of sexually transmitted infections, emotional harm and abuse.”

Over the past four years the NHS dispensed contraceptive implants to 21,700 girls who are legally too young to have sex, while a further 12,100 girls under 16 were given injections.

Some 5,400 girls under 16 were given the contraceptive implant in the year to March last year, 1,800 of whom were aged 14 and under.

Ann Widdecombe, Daily Express columnist and a former Tory MP, said the figures summed up “the total irresponsibility of a time in which we have an age of consent which is then ignored by medical professionals”.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service said the increased use of these contraceptives was making a significant contribution to the number of abortions for young girls going down.