This is taken to mean that those in their teens are not physiologically competent to make important decisions relating to risk-taking. For example, Casey et al 14 report that ‘recent human imaging and animal studies provide a biological basis suggesting differential development of subcortical limbic systems relative to top-down control systems during adolescence relative to childhood and adulthood’. Neuroscientific evidence suggests that the adolescent brain undergoes significant changes throughout the teens and beyond. He argues that sexual behaviour below the age of 14 should be criminal, and that there is a role for legal prohibitions for the collective good which goes beyond preventing harm in individual cases (pp. 218) suggests that children are indeed citizens who, like adult citizens, have a right to protection as well as a right to freedom of activity. 6 Although it is often implied that children should not be regarded as such, Waites 6 (p.
Various principles have been adduced which should govern the legal position of minors. There is no evidence that the legal minimum age of sexual consent in a country is in any way correlated with the sexual behaviour of young people. 5 This places the UK among the quarter with the most restrictive legislation. 4 In Europe, consensual relations with 14-year-olds are legal in half of the jurisdictions, and with 15-year-olds in three-quarters. Nowhere is this age set lower than 14 years. In Europe, all countries have minimum age limits for sexual relations. There is wide variation between countries in the age of sexual consent. 3 Further, it is an offence for a person aged 18 or over to have any sexual activity with a person under the age of 18 if the older person holds a position of trust (for example, a teacher or social worker) as such sexual activity is an abuse of the position of trust. However, Home Office guidance is clear that there is no intention to prosecute teenagers under the age of 16 where both mutually agree and where they are of a similar age. It is an offence for anyone to have any sexual activity with a person under the age of 16.
The age of consent is the same regardless of the gender or sexual orientation of a person and whether the sexual activity is between people of the same or different gender. The existing laws in all the jurisdictions of the UK state 2 that the age of consent for any form of sexual activity is 16 years for both men and women. Further, it will be proposed not only that there would be specific advantages to changing the law in this way, but that the principles on which this proposal is based have implications for other ways in which the rights of young people are inappropriately curtailed. It will be claimed here that none of these is valid.
It is the case that there are many cogent arguments against such a move.
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