ABSTRACT
The campaign waged by Victoria Gillick in the 1980s against the provision of contraception to girls under the age of 16 made her into a household name. Despite losing her case in a House of Lords decision in 1985, Mrs Gillick has continued to campaign against what she would see as the contamination of children’s innocence and the erosion of parental rights through children’s increased access to sexual knowledge and advice. In addition to her continuing objections to the provision of contraceptive services to the under-16s (for example, in 1989, 1992, and 19941), Mrs Gillick has publicly complained about or criticized various sex education materials,2 describing one as ‘state funded pornography’ (The Guardian, 25 March 1994). Clearly, a full decade after the House of Lords ruling, Mrs Gillick has not withdrawn from her campaign. Her ongoing agitations are a firm indication of the extent to which the issue of children and sex remains a highly contentious one in contemporary Britain.
