Doctors are risking running into trouble with the law whenever they prescribe contraceptives to girls below the age of 18 without their parents’ consent, according to a gynaecologist George Buttigieg.
“We are risking as professionals but many doctors prescribe them anyway. If a girl under 18, who is in a relationship, asks me for the pill, I feel that, ethically, I am not doing anything wrong by prescribing it to her,” Dr Buttigieg said.
“If we are looking at reducing the age of consent from 18 to 16, we must ensure that the consent to treatment should also be changed accordingly or else we risk creating more problems.”
Mr Buttigieg was asked for his opinion during a meeting of the joint parliamentary social affairs, family affairs and health committee, which discussed the possibility of reducing the age of sexual consent from 18 to 16.
Malta, Turkey and the Vatican are the only Western states where the sexual age of consent stands at 18. In other countries, it varies from 13 (Spain), 14 (Italy and Portugal) and 16 (the UK).
Doctors in Malta are technically bound by law not to treat minors in relation to sexual health if not accompanied by their parents or legal guardians.
Mr Buttigieg described a “very worrying circumstance” when he was preparing to operate on a 15-year-old pregnant girl.
“They told me that she had left. It turned out that a young doctor did not allow her to sign for the operation to take place since she wasn’t accompanied by her mother.
“I understand that he is young and he was following the law but how can you turn down a girl who is carrying a baby?”
Mr Buttigieg believed that if the age of consent was reduced from 18 to 16, it would not make the slightest difference as far as the teenagers were concerned. From his experience, the law was of no hindrance to teenagers’ decision to engage in sexual activities.
According to statistics, the median age when Maltese teenagers first engage in sexual intercourse is 15 years. Some 41 per cent of teens aged between 16 and 18 have engaged in sexual intercourse.
Mr Buttigieg advocated an age banding system, such as that used in Canada. Although the sexual age of consent is 16 in Canada, there would be no proceedings in the case of 14 and 15-year-olds as long as their partner was not more than five years older than them.
The banding system helped protect vulnerable minors from older, sexual predators who could take advantage of them.