{"id":205175,"date":"2019-06-21T23:55:04","date_gmt":"2019-06-22T04:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=205175"},"modified":"2019-06-24T13:50:48","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T18:50:48","slug":"uk-judge-late-term-forced-abortion-disabled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/uk-judge-late-term-forced-abortion-disabled\/","title":{"rendered":"SAVED: UK Court of Appeals overturns judge’s order to force woman into late-term abortion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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UPDATE, 6\/24\/19<\/strong>: Three judges on the Court of Appeal have overturned<\/a> Judge Nathalie Lieven’s ruling to force a woman with mental disabilities to undergo an abortion at 22 weeks, despite the child’s grandmother stating that she would care for the child herself. Judge Lieven claimed it was in the woman’s “best interest” to be forced into an abortion despite the family’s wishes and despite the fact that the woman herself “appears she doesn’t want it,” in the judge’s own words.<\/p>\n

The Court of Appeal stated today that they would give reasons for their decision at a later date.<\/p>\n

UK Right to Life noted<\/a> that “Lord Justice McCombe, Lady Justice King and Lord Justice Peter Jackson overturned the ruling after the woman\u2019s mother mounted a legal challenge,” adding that “the identities of the family, their social worker and NHS Trust who brought the case against them remain unknown.”<\/p>\n

Right to Life called it “a very welcome decision that will save the life of the unborn child and the mother from a forced late-term abortion,” adding that “we fear that this is not a one-off case.” The group is calling for the Department of Health “to\u00a0urgently reveal how many women have been forced to have an abortion in the UK over the last 10 years and make it clear how they will ensure it will not happen again.\u201d Right to Life notes that Lord Alton of Liverpool said Judge Lieven “went way beyond the rights of a British Court” and “trampl[ed] on the foundation, paramount human right — the very right to life itself….”<\/p>\n

6\/21\/19<\/strong>: A judge in the UK has ordered an abortion against the will of a woman with mental disabilities. The woman, whose identity has not been revealed, is 22 weeks pregnant and in her twenties.<\/p>\n

The British-Nigerian woman is reported<\/a> to have diminished mental capacity, the level of an elementary school child. The woman\u2019s mother, a former midwife, made clear to the court that she would assume the responsibility of the baby, and argued against the forced abortion since it would violate the Catholic faith of both her and her daughter.<\/p>\n

But on June 21, Justice Nathalie Lieven issued a ruling in the Court of Protection, which in the UK has authority over the financial and personal welfare of persons with diminished mental capacity, stating that forced abortion of a wanted child is actually in the \u201cbest interests\u201d of the woman.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am acutely conscious of the fact that for the State to order a woman to have a termination where it appears that she doesn’t want it is an immense intrusion \u2026 I have to operate in [her] best interests, not on society’s views of termination,\u201d said Justice Lieven, according to the Catholic News Agency<\/a>. \u201cI think [the woman] would suffer greater trauma from having a baby removed [from her care],\u201d Lieven said, because \u201cit would at that stage be a real baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

The video below depicts a D&E second trimester abortion, which dismembers the child in utero, frequently while the child is still living:<\/p>\n