DOCTORS FOR LIFE INTERNATIONAL’S SUBMISSION TO THE
PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE FOR JUSTICE AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT: SEXUAL OFFENCES AMENDMENT BILL
1 SEPTEMBER 2006
Doctors for Life International noted that the Committee is
considering the lowering of the age of consent for homosexual activity from 19
to 16 years.
In our opinion, there is sufficient scientific evidence
suggesting that the age of consent should not be lower than 18 (for all sexual
activity).
Doctors for Life International urge the Committee to study
the short summary of relevant scientific studies below that will substantiate
the above-mentioned suggestion.
Much research has been done in recent years concerning how
people make health care decisions. Some of this research has been done in
children, and some are particularly related to health care decisions made by
children in relation to sexual activity. This research is very relevant to the
formation of any law that will regulate sexual, including homosexual activity
in children.
It is important to realise that the increased pressure for
“adolescent rights to health care decision-making” has been limited to the area
of sexual activity. Parental involvement has always been an integral part of
the legal protection of minors; therefore, to justify the elimination of such
involvement should be well substantiated with medical and sociological
research. Some activists have systematically attempted to justify such changes
on the shaky grounds that adolescents have the intellectual and cognitive ability
to make such decisions on their own [1]. Recent research casts considerable
doubt on these premises. The majority of international developmental
psychologists consider adolescents to be developmentally unable to make
decisions where abstract reasoning is required, as will be seen from the review
of research findings below.
The proposed amendments envision children making decisions
concerning their sexual health without the knowledge of their parents or
guardians.
A child’s ability to make rational choices depends on his or
her level of cognitive development, and this is not related physiologically or
anatomically to the maturation of the reproductive processes. The nervous
system does not mature as early as the gonads (one of the masses of generative
tissue giving rise to either an ovary or a testis) and psychology shows us that
mature, adult reasoning is a late feature [2]. Formal operational thought is
the method of thinking that allows abstract thought and problem solving.
Research has shown that this type of thinking commences at an age of 18 years
and over, not 12 years as previously thought [3].
It has been shown scientifically that adolescents do not
function like adults and cannot be expected to always make logical decisions.
Given a wide range of choices about sexual lifestyles, the adolescent will not
choose one on a rational basis [4]. This research also leads to the conclusion
that adolescents are not sufficiently cognitively developed to allow logical
decision-making or to use formal operational thought regarding sexual activity
[5]. Adolescents have not fully reached the stage of operative thinking [6]. At
this stage (of operative thinking) people are able to imagine the future in
such a way as to be able to foresee what might happen far ahead in time as a
result of the present situation, and in such a way as to be able to take action
based on these potential future situations.
Formal operational thought is obviously needed when
considering the risks and benefits of a particular course of action. If someone
is not sufficiently cognitively developed to think in a formal operative way,
he is not sufficiently cognitively developed to give fully informed consent to
a procedure or sexual activity. Adolescents have been shown scientifically to
be deficient in:
imagining risks and future consequences, appreciating the
need for independent professional opinions in certain situations, recognising the potential vested interests
of health care professionals in providing certain information [7].
Individuals capable of formal operative reasoning sometimes reason on a formal
level, sometimes on a concrete level, sometimes on an affective level, and
sometimes not at all. To complicate matters, adolescents who do employ formal
thought may do so effectively in one area, but clumsily in another [8]. The
teen years are the transition between the juvenile incompetence of childhood
and the full responsibilities of adulthood. It is a time when adolescents
mature and gain experience.
There are several characteristics of teenage thought that
result in deficient reasoning abilities, and so a difficulty in predicting
outcomes. Sixteen-year-olds consider themselves to be unique, living by
different rules, and facing different probabilities and consequences from
others. This results in a failure to infer probable outcomes, contributes to
adolescent mortality, unemployment, drug abuse, sexually transmitted infections
including HIV/AIDS, and pregnancy. Adolescents believe that they are unlikely
to suffer from the negative consequences of their actions, and hence take risks
that others would not [9].
Teenage girls engage in emotional reasoning; they employ
affective logic. For them, what they feel to be right is true. They tend not to
employ deductive reasoning (to work from a certain premise towards a logical
conclusion) or inductive reasoning (the ability to derive a general principle
from observed particular instances) [10].
The adolescent believes he/she is invulnerable, and that the
laws of probability do not apply to 'me'. When the individual is emotionally
charged, this belief becomes even stronger, and is amplified even more when
narcissistic gratification is on the line. Coupled with this is the belief that
negative consequences will not accrue from sexual activity. His or her activity
will not result in AIDS, sexually transmitted infection or pregnancy.
Adolescents believe themselves immune to natural consequences [11].
The ability to present an argument, to impartially analyse
the data on which it is based, and to consistently draw accurate inferences
from the data is a late-adolescent, young-adult phenomenon. It is seen only
sparingly during the earlier years of adolescence [12].
Just as the two-year-old cannot understand explanations that
fall outside his or her personal experience, so too a teenager is unable to
process information that lies outside his or her personal experience. When
given material to learn, teenagers tend to memorise it, but cannot internalise
it or apply it to other content areas. They also, like the two-year-old,
believe they understand more than they do. They are not aware of their
limitations and make judgements that are inappropriate.
Unfortunately, if the adolescent believes that he/she has
enough information to become sexually active the errors that can result may be
devastating to him/her. The major difference between a two-year-old and an
adolescent in this case is that the adolescent can make bigger mistakes.
During adolescence the final shift to formal operations, the
‘adult’ type of thinking, begins. In the United States of America the majority
of adolescents are concrete operational thinkers; they are not able to think
and reason abstractly and accurately predict the likely consequences of their
actions. There is a poor understanding of cause and effect. If an event occurs
which was not planned, the adolescent thinker does not take responsibility for
the outcome. It was simply an accident for which there is no direct decision
and therefore, no responsibility. With adult thinkers, if an unplanned outcome
does occur, they are prepared to take responsibility for it because they can
evaluate the effectiveness of their own planning process. Just because they
failed to anticipate something does not mean that they did not cause it to
happen [13].
Thus an adolescent who is involved in sexual activity will
not be able to conceptualise the effects of such sexual activity. It is outside
of his/her experience, and as a rule adolescent thinkers cannot think in
abstract terms. What they can conceptualise are their sexual feelings, and the
feeling of gratification they give. Based on the above, and that an adolescent
reasons according to feelings, it is unlikely for them to make the right
decisions even if they are warned of the risks involved.
The teenager faced with an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy
illustrates this point: If the concrete operating adolescent becomes pregnant
the decision made will be the quick, immediate solution, which is an abortion.
The concrete thinker cannot think into the future possibilities of bearing a
child (which to her is outside of her experience) in abstract terms. She will
also act according to how she feels at the time, using affective reasoning. She
may feel her parents will 'kill' her if they find out, and because she feels
this, it will be true to her. These are characteristics of adolescent thinking.
They think like this just because they are not yet adult thinkers, or because,
even if they are able to use formal operational thought, they are so
emotionally charged at the time of an unplanned pregnancy that they
characteristically revert to adolescent thinking.
Valid consent to sexual activity involves an exercise of
choice, which in itself is dependent on information about the options available
and the risks and benefits attendant on each one.
In order to make the right choices the adolescent must be
able to anticipate long-term effects and weigh the cause and effect of these
options. This is exactly the ability that is lacking in most high school
students. In one study only 40% of the students in the senior year of high
school considered long-term consequences in solving problems.
Biological and medical science indicates that children, presented
with a range of options, will not be able to make an adult decision because
they are unable to weigh up abstract concepts, the “what if’s” of the situation
[15] [16].
Studies that have been done on the ability of children to
make their own health care decisions compared younger adolescents (12-14 years
old) with older adolescents (18-21 years old). The studies showed that
adolescents between 16 and 21 years of age function in the same way as the
younger adolescents. That is, they were equally incompetent. This is not
surprising to developmental psychologists and probably to most parents [17]. It
does not seem logical to remove the increment of wisdom, experience and skill
that one would expect parents to provide.
In conclusion it is evident from these studies that young
people up to the age of 21 are limited in a number of important ways in making
their own decisions. The most noticeable is that they have a poor ability to
use long-term planning in making decisions, to recognise possible risks of
intervention, and to use rational reasons for these decisions. There is no
evidence to indicate that decisions regarding sexual activity, be it
heterosexual or homosexual activity, suddenly allows adolescents to marshal
extraordinary abilities [18].
Recommendations:
Based on the empirical scientific data provided, Doctors for
Life International urges the Portfolio Committee for Justice and Constitutional
Development:
Not to lower the age
of consent for homosexual activities from 19 to 16 but rather to 18 for all
sexual activity;
Nor should the
proposed amendments allow sexual experimentation between the ages of 12 and 16.
The proposed amendments should not promote any sexual activity with or between
adolescents, as seen in the light of current medical, sociological and
psychological research and given the reality of a rampant HIV/AIDS epidemic.
References:
[1] Franz W The Impact of Abortion on Adolescents. Are They
Vulnerable to Mis-use by the Abortion Industry?--In "Window on the
Future," David Andrusko (ed.), Washington, D.C.: NRCL, Inc., 1989
[2] Stuart-Smith S Teenage sex BMJ 1996; 312: 390-391 (17 February)
[3] Richard D Has Sex Education Failed our Teenagers? A Research Report. Focus
on the Family Publishing.
[4] Richard, D Has Sex Education Failed our Teenagers? A Research Report. Focus
on the Family Publishing.
[5] Franz W Adolescent Cognitive Abilities and Implications
for Sexual Decision Making pp1, 3. Paper presented at Celebrate the Family
Third Eastern Symposium, Pennsylvania State University, 24 March 1987
[6] Cobliner WG, Pregnancy in the single adolescent girl: The role of cognitive
functions. J. Youth and Adolescence, 3(1): 25.
[7] Lewis, C. C. (1981). How adolescents approach decisions: Changes over grades seven to twelve and policy
implications. Child Development, 52: 538.
[8] Mitchell JJ, The Natural Limitations of Youth. The predispositions that
shape the adolescent character. Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1998. p 10-11
[9] Mitchell JJ, The Natural Limitations of Youth. The predispositions that
shape the adolescent character. Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1998. p. 33-34
[10] Mitchell JJ, The Natural Limitations of Youth. The predispositions that
shape the adolescent character. Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1998. p. 42-43.
[11] Mitchell JJ, The Natural Limitations of Youth. The predispositions that
shape the adolescent character. Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1998. p. 38.
[12] Mitchell JJ, The Natural Limitations of Youth. The predispositions that
shape the adolescent character. Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1998. p. 47
[13] Franz W Sex and the Teenager: The
World, September 1989 (magazine published by Washington Times Corp.)
[14] Franz W Sex and the Teenager: The
World, September 1989 (magazine published by Washington Times Corp.)
[15] Franz W Adolescent Cognitive Abilities and Implications for Sexual
Decision Making pp1, 3. Paper presented at Celebrate the Family Third Eastern
Symposium, Pennsylvania State University, 24 March 1987
[16] Richard, D Has Sex Education Failed our Teenagers? A Research Report.
Focus on the Family Publishing.
[17] Franz W The Impact of Abortion on Adolescents. Are They Vulnerable to
Mis-use by the Abortion Industry?--In "Window on the Future," David
Andrusko (ed.), Washington, D.C.: NRCL, Inc., 1989
[18] Franz W The Impact of Abortion on Adolescents. Are They Vulnerable to
Mis-use by the Abortion Industry?--In "Window on the Future," David
Andrusko (ed.), Washington, D.C.: NRCL, Inc., 1989