ARTICLE: Mandatory Reporting - Public Health Benefit or Invasion of Privacy?
by Lindsay Coley
Apparently Australia wants to require doctors and all family members and friends to report all "child sexual activity" for those 16 and under (16 is the age of consent in Australia).
This would appear to be without the consent of the "child" in question or his or her parents and failure to report would be illegal therefore subjecting anyone who doesn't report it to fines and dare I say... jail time?
According to Dr Paul Bauert as stated in the article this would undoubtedly be a very bad idea as "children" tend to not want to tell doctors or parents about sex as it is now and once they learn about this law that if they do tell their doctors about it (perhaps seeking counseling on birth control or *gasp* STD testing) that their personal and private information is not only not personal it is not private.
This law would also stipulate that, regardless of consent, that one or BOTH parties could be prosecuted if, once the information is reported to the appropriate authorities, and they could also incur jail time for their crimes against the over-18s in control sense of "decency."
Needless to say this is just simply a very bad idea. While this may not be America it can reasonably expected that private information be just that – private – and the government has no business keeping tabs or records of "child sexual activity" unless they are involved in a rape case!
Here is another article about the same thing with a little more detail. One can clearly see there is no actual benefit to this law and would only harm young people.
One can only guess what the Australian government was thinking on this one. Don't even get me started on their campaign to "censor the internet."
