By Dave Andrusko
Nothing about a court-ordered abortion of a mentally challenged young woman made sense. Now, following a June 24 decision by a three judge court of appeals to overturn the forced abortion order mandated by Mrs. Justice Nathalie Lieven, the real story is coming out.
None of this would have been possible had the young woman’s mother, a former midwife, not successfully challenged Justice Lieven’s decision before Justices Richard McCombe, Eleanor King, and Peter Jackson, who said they would explain their reasoning in the future. According to the Sky News
During the [Monday] hearing, details of how the woman–who is in her 20s and 22 weeks pregnant–had been prepared for surgery emerged.
Barrister Fiona Paterson, who led the legal team for the NHS hospital trust with responsibility for the woman’s care, told the three appeal judges: “She was told she would go to sleep.
“She would have an operation and when she woke up the baby would no longer be in her tummy. But she would get a new doll.”
Miss Paterson said the woman, who cannot be identified, has already been given a doll which she played with.
It’s important to know that neither the woman nor her social worker nor her own mother wanted the abortion. The doll was to “try to place the woman,” the Catholic News Service reported.
The woman reportedly has a mental age between six and nine years old, as well as a mood disorder. She was 22 weeks pregnant at the time the case was decided at the Court of Protection on June 21.
Both the woman, who cannot be named because of privacy restrictions, and her mother are described as being of Nigerian descent, Catholic, and opposed to abortion.
At the time of her original ruling, Justice Lieven said, “I have to operate in [her] best interests, not on society’s views of termination.” But questions about Justice Lieven’s objectivity were quickly raised.
As the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children explained, Lieven “has a long history of abortion advocacy. As a lawyer, she represented the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) in 2011 in their crusade to allow home abortions. From 2015 to 2018, Judge Lieven represented the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission as it launched legal action against Northern Ireland’s government, arguing that their pro-life law violated the human rights of women and girls.” She has argued in court that abortion restrictions in Northern Ireland were analogous to “torture.”
When the woman’s mother said she would care for her grandchild, “Lieven rejected this argument as she said it would be too complicated and risky for the child, and the potential removal of the child from the woman’s custody would be more traumatic than if she underwent an abortion,” the Catholic News Agency reported.
Clare McCarthy, a spokesperson Right To Life UK, cautioned that the appeals court decision “would not protect mothers or children in similar circumstances. ”
“Unfortunately, we fear that this is not a one-off case,” McCarthy said.
“We are calling on the Department of Health to urgently 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.”