{"id":300614,"date":"2023-10-25T06:37:04","date_gmt":"2023-10-25T11:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=300614"},"modified":"2023-10-27T13:07:54","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T18:07:54","slug":"court-11-year-old-abortion-against-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/court-11-year-old-abortion-against-will\/","title":{"rendered":"UK court orders 11-year-old to undergo abortion… against her will"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An 11-year-old girl in the United Kingdom will undergo a court-ordered abortion, even though she wants to keep her baby.<\/p>\n

The Telegraph reported<\/a> that the girl became pregnant after being raped several times by older boys. London High Court judge Emma Arbuthnot ruled that she should have an abortion, saying it was in her “best interest,” even though it was a health board, and not the girl herself, who requested the abortion.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe became pregnant after being raped by a 14-year-old she met on the internet when she was aged 10, on the 18th or 21st of May 2023,” Arbuthnot said. \u201cShe was raped by another 14-year-old boy on the 11th of June 2023, but he did not make her pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arbuthnot explained that a health board asked for \u201cdeclarations that a termination of pregnancy would be in her best interests,” and that the placenta should be retained for forensic testing.<\/p>\n

However, according to both The Sun<\/a> and Fox News<\/a>, the girl (identified only as AZ) and her mother did not<\/em> request an abortion.<\/p>\n

“When the many risks of continuing with the pregnancy were explained to her, AZ said she was \u2018happy\u2019 to be pregnant and wanted to continue with it,” Arbuthnot’s ruling said. “She said it made her feel \u2018special\u2019. The mother supported AZ\u2019s position.”<\/p>\n

Yet a mental health expert said she lacked competence, \u2014 something Arbuthnot evidently agreed with.<\/p>\n

“Her views involved \u2018naive magical thinking\u2019 in her approach to the pregnancy,” she said. “She lacked the intellectual development and capacity to process the complexity of the decisions that had to be made and her emotional investment in one outcome was clearly clouding her judgement. An important factor in AZ\u2019s decision-making was that the birth of a child would ensure she would not have to return to school.”<\/p>\n