Disabled Woman in UK Nearly Forced into Abortion by Court

The Royal Courts of Justice, London.
Credit: Elliot Brown / Flickr.

A 24-year old woman who has a mental disability causing her to function "at a level of between 6 and 9 years old" became pregnant as a result of presumed rape, although the father is still unknown. A court originally ordered the woman to perform a late-term abortion, but after an appeal, the ruling was changed to forced insertion of a contraceptive device immediately her child is born via Caesarean section.

Lady Justice King wrote for the three-judge Court of Appeals panel,

“[The judge who made the original ruling] was in error in failing to make any reference in her ultimate analysis to [the mother’s] views about AB's best interests when, as the judge found, she knew AB better than anyone and had her best interests at heart... Carrying out a termination absent a woman's consent is a most profound invasion of her Article 8 [human] rights, albeit that the interference will be legitimate and proportionate if the procedure is in her best interests.”

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