So much for choice.
Spectator: “My body, my choice,” the Left loves to scream. But that slogan apparently doesn’t apply if you’re an 11-year-old victim of an alleged rape and, despite that trauma, still want to have the baby.
In a private September ruling, a U.K. judge in London ordered that an 11-year-old girl, who, at the time of the hearing, was 14 weeks and six days pregnant, be required to kill her child — despite the girl’s expressed desire to have the baby and her mother’s promise to support her decision. The reason? The judge decided that an abortion would be in the girl’s best interest. Her and her parents’ wishes were deemed irrelevant.
The girl — referred to as AZ though out court documents — “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,” London High Court Judge Emma Arbuthnot said in her ruling. AZ was raped again by another minor on June 11.
There’s no doubt that the risks associated with a pregnancy for an 11-year-old are much higher than those for a full-grown woman — and the judge cited health reasons as the driving factor in her decision. “Her body may just be too small to give birth other than by a cesarean. Any experience would be likely to traumatize her,” Arbuthnot wrote, as reported by the Sun.
The judge doesn’t seem to have considered that an abortion is also a traumatic experience that comes with its own long list of medical risks, including hemorrhage, infection, perforation of the uterus, and death. Studies suggest that women who have had an abortion are 45 to 81 percent more likely to struggle with mental health issues. “There is a demonstrated correlation between abortion and subsequent depression. Suicidal behavior is also more common among post-abortive women compared with those who give birth,” Live Action founder Lila Rose wrote in Newsweek.
It was never about choice. It was always about power.
