The Bell case poses threats to teenagers wishing to access contraception and abortion care. Trans children without parental support – who are especially vulnerable – will remain disadvantaged. The decision does leave a number of problems unresolved. It is not unreasonable to describe this morning’s decision as in large part reversing the practical effects of Bell. The decision means that children with that support will no longer be barred from accessing puberty blockers by the Bell decision. Very few children were able to overcome them without parental support.
The barriers to accessing puberty blockers through the Tavistock were already enormous. What role is there for a judge – what expertise would they bring or function would they fulfil – in circumstances where the child, parents and doctor all agreed on the right course of therapeutic treatment? Good Law Project’s lawyers were unable to identify any precedent in English law for this situation.
The effect of the decision in the Bell case earlier this year, when read together with the practice hitherto of the Tavistock to treat on the basis of a child’s consent only, was that even when a specialist doctor wanted to prescribe puberty blockers, a child wanted to receive puberty blockers, and their parents believed puberty blockers were in the best interests of the child, an application would still need to be made to the High Court. That is the outcome of the decision of the High Court, earlier this morning, in the case of AB v Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust (full decision below), the first case funded by Good Law Project’s Trans Defence Fund. If a child cannot consent to taking puberty blockers their loving parent can consent in their stead.
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