Court forces girl of 13 to have abortion

 

Last updated at 09:55am on 21st February 2007 Comments (5)

 

 

A 13-year-old girl has been forced to have an abortion after her mother took her to court to terminate the pregnancy.

In a case that has shocked Catholic Italy, the girl's mother ordered her to have an abortion after discovering she was pregnant by her 15-year-old boyfriend, La Stampa newspaper reported.

Turin's juvenile court had ruled the girl, named only as Valentina, must choose whether she wanted to terminate - but because she was a minor the decision was passed on to her mother.

Since the abortion this month, Valentina has been recovering in a hospital psychiatric unit. La Stampa quoted her as saying: "You made me kill my baby now I'm going to kill myself."

Child psychiatrist Professor Roberto Rigardetto, in charge of the unit, said: "Her desire to keep the baby should not have been gone against as it was."

Turin's cardinal Severino Poletto said: "A foetus is a life and I am for the defence of life."

:angry: Not a topic I like to get going on, but whatever happened to 'pro choice'?

I also believe in prochoice, but when an individual has made so many bad choices to begin with, are they really in the right position to make the right choice about the baby?

 

In cases such as this, I think the girl should ultimately have the final word (it is her body after all), but not before an extensive educational course on what being a mother is all about. Young mothers need to know exactly what they are getting themselves into before they carry a baby to term....

I blame the parents

You can't blame the parents for ALL of it. :dozey: Most of it is her and her boyfriend's fault. If you do the deed be prepared to pay the consequences! Her mom shouldn't have dragged her to court though, that was harsh. :confused: The baby could have been put up for adoption or something...

It's not fair to say that the parents are responcible for ALL of it, but in my experience, a messed up relationship with the parents can lead to that sort of thing.

 

This woman dragged her daughter to court, forced her to get an abortion against her will (and yeah, even if she didn't want to take care of it, adoption was an option) and the poor girl is locked up in a psych ward, yelling that she wants to kill herself. Does that sound like any sort of a healthy relationship to any of you? Like a mother who actually cared about the well-being of her daughter? I'm thinking that there were some serious problems before all of this began.