Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

The paper follows the advocacy by Bro Nigel Chanakira on his stance that the current bill of the Public Health Act which is under consultative process in different provinces in Zimbabwe seeking to make it a law to proffer contraceptives to minors. The submissions in this paper do not agree with Bro Nigel Chanakira in his person rather they agree in his positions which he averred in his tweets. The views he presented are to avoid a scenario at any point in time were contraceptives are given to minors. The views he presented are to us non heuristic, rather they seek more to avoid epistemic injustices against children. The paper stands with the view that morality and reason should at all times inform laws which affect minors either directly or indirectly. The thinking which informs this paper is that any child law which does not conform to the dictates of morality and reason weakens society’s role as custodians of children’s moral conscientiousness. Informing the bill the paper will make use of psychological reasoning and its morality as espoused in psychological ethics.

Minors should not be provided with contraceptives at this stage in life as they would be having severe conflicts within themselves and experiencing physiological changes within their bodies due to puberty which may perpetuate feelings of confusion. It is at this stage in life that minors would want to experiment with their bodies to feel if they are real women or men. The most often used channels would be experimental sex with a partner or masturbation. Minors in the age of 12 up to 17 are regarded as adolescence. This period is metaphorically called the period of ‘storm and stresses’. It is at this stage that these minors would best do with proper adult guidance affirming the essentials that even without having sex or masturbation they are woman or man. It is not psychologically reasonable at this stage to abdicate our roles as parents or guardians to mere contraceptive distributers. At this period of time we have a unique opportunity to be patient with the children by way of listening to them both from their language and verbal cues and facilitate how best they can transition to adulthood without having to suffer the emotional and spiritual strains involved in direct sexual activities.

Minors from the age of 12 would be starting to build up formal operations which would be a transition from the previous stage of preoperational thought as proposed by Jean Piaget theory of cognitive development. Minors at this stage begin theoretical and abstract reasoning; they begin to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a general principle to specific information. It is from this epoch of cognitive development that contraceptive distribution should be avoided so that minors are afforded the chance to theoretically and abstractly reason on the dilemmas of premarital sex and more so allow them to deductively reason against immorality. Giving them contraceptives at this age is to say there is no need for such reasoning as you can indulge in sexual activities so long you don’t become pregnant and or contract sexual diseases.

Doling contraceptives to children who are at critical stages of their psychosocial and cognitive development would constitute epistemic injustice against the children, by epistemic injustice I refer to a situation whereby those who have been wronged become aware but the society is ignorant and complacent regarding the implications connected therewith. It is our moral conviction from the ethical mores of psychology that giving children contraceptives while at their critical period of development militates on their beneficence and constitutes iatrogenic injury/harm. The prescribed measure to give contraceptives to minors is harmful to their psychosocial development and cognitive development than the mere benefit which is said to come with minors using contraceptives.

As the fraternity of psychology in Zimbabwe our recommendations to the current bill is the striking off from the bill, issues of giving contraceptives to minors. Our proposal is that in the interests of proper child development strategies, everyone who becomes pregnant should at a clinic or hospital of choice for purposes of delivery undergo mandatory parental training for not less than 40 hrs so that they can help their children to undergo various stages of their development. Parental training can be done by psychologists and various child specialists for free using tax funds.

Prosper K Mushauri

Coordinator

Society of Zambezi Psychology