To want DSD to have an abortion?

[TessoftheDamned]

Heavy going stuff but really doubting myself on this.

DSD is 14 and we thought was a straight-laced girl, very into her studies, hardly ever goes out, etc. Anyway, has fallen pregnant and just had the nerve to tell us (lives with us full-time, her mother is not in the picture). The guy is 'long gone' as she says, refuses to tell us his name or where she met him. To be honest I'm a bit worried there was some pressure and perhaps even date rape thing going on, but I haven't pushed it as she's very vulnerable at the moment (as one might expect).

She is adamant she is keeping her baby. Although I'm sure it will end up looking to us as parents and her as a sister, we don't want another baby and don't want to look after hers. She's not an adult but it is her body, I'm so torn. I feel like she's doing herself and everyone else a great disservice bringing this heartache, but of course a baby is normally a source of joy...

DH is flabbergasted and shocked, he's still trying to find out who the boy is (she told us 3 days ago). She clams up when we suggest anything other than keeping the baby and refuses to speak to us.

AIBU?

scaryteacher, I think, therefore I am not braindead.
Altinkum has not presented a good case regards my brain-deadness, so I would not worry. But thanks.

As an aside - the transition from paediatric to adult care for those unlucky enough to have chronic illnesses is often complicated by exactly this issue. THe parents have controlled the child's treatment, ensured they take their meds and attend their appointments and you run the risk of finding that you have 18 year olds who don't fully understand their condition, do't want to take their meds because at last nobody is forcing them and won't attend appointments because for the first time they feel they have a choice.

I think the OP has yet to determine what the child in question actually really wants. So does the child...

'I don't live in the UK, so yes ds can be made to have an injection against his will.'

I'm beginning to feel a wee bit of envious . . .

I second that the OP has never mentioned forcing her DSD, she's wondering how to present this as a viable option and wondering about the implications for her own life. The overly emotive (both the 'book her an appointment and tell her to go' and the 'dragged down a backalley by her own parents' brigades) are not helping. Surely, this is why getting outside counselling is very important. Then the DSD will get concrete advice on what is and isn't possible, and depending what she decided, the OP can start to make decisions of her ow re. what she can and can't personally do herself.

Do you think shouting at me will make me agree with you, because it won't.

I think the child is too young to comprehend what is happening to her and is ill equipped to cope with it as Quint pointed out. I don't think she will deal with having the baby well and that the resentment it will cause within her family will fracture her family, so that's a lot of lives upset.

Quite frankly, I think the needs of the exisiting family are more important and that their rights and needs override the needs of a foetus who may not even come to term.

Yes, let the child make the decision, but as I have repeatedly said make it plain that there will be no support whatsoever. If on those terms she chooses to go ahead, then that's down to her and she has to sort it out for herself, which she will be incapable of doing, and here we go again.

No-one on here has suggested forced abortion if you bother to read the thread carefully, but human rights apply both ways, to the OP as well, and she has a right to her family life staying just as it is. I think it shocking and sick that the OP should be forced into a position of having to care for a child that she does not want to care for, when there are solutions of termination or adoption.

I want to live where ScaryTeacher does. It sounds to me like a far more sensible country than the UK.

I'm still shaking my head in disbelief at the concept that a 14 yo is considered in law too immature to consent to/have sex but is considered mature enough to decide whether or not she has an abortion and to care for a baby.

I'm shaking my head in disbelief at the abuse and vitriol from Altinkum too.

A little ed at some of the views on here about whether a child can be coerced into medical procedures such as a forced abortion.

(Tess - realise that you have at no time suggested coercion for your DSD's situation).

Irrespective of whether you live in the UK or not, many countries have - thankfully - ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (all UN states except Somalia and the USA) which recognises that children have a right to a say in matters relating to themselves, a right to privacy, a right to be treated fairly and with respect etc and which requires signatories to put laws in place to protect those rights. So, subject to concepts such as Gillick competency in many countries (including the UK) parents are highly unlikely to be able to legally force or coerce children into measures against their will - it is, of course, a sliding scale so that the older the child, the more competent they are likely to be to determine their own affairs.

Tess's situation really isn't about the law at all but thought some clarification might be useful because there have been a number of misleading posts here, which give the impression that the law might be otherwise. One day, hopefully, forced abortions, forced marriages, forced FGM and other undesirable practices which are imposed on underage girls today will be abolished.

Again - Tess - I am not insinuating that this is in anyway what you have suggested. Hope dinner was positive for you both last night.

X-posts altinkum and Giddypickle. Agree coercion/force is off point.

Nobody has advocated forcing an abortion against the patient's will. No one. In this entire thread. At all.

Is Tess's family in the UK?

If so, this is all just semantics isn't it?

If they are in a country where teenagers apparently have no human rights (and yes, although legally children, they are people with feelings) like some of you are, then the child may have to deal with the base abuse of being treated no better than a family pet, it seems

I stand corrected. One comment amongst 800. Not by the OP. Is that worthy of all your exclamation marks?

Altinkum, yes, UK law, but Quint and I don't live in the UK, therefore UK law does not apply to us. Norway and Belgium are not 'in the country' but out of the country on the other side of the channel and near the Arctic. They are countries in their own right, with their own kings and queens and laws.

Val, it's Belgium where I get to say what goes medically until he's older.

I don't quite understand why the DSD having the baby is 'removing the OP's choices' at all. In both situations, both parties have to face the consequences of their actions, one to have sex under-age and not have a termination, the other to be a parent to a step-daughter. The OP is not going to be forced to care for this child in a coercive way, she may feel a moral obligation or she may not, but that is a different thing. I don't quite understand why the OP has not choices...she has plenty of choices in this unexpected turn of events, she probably just doesn't much fancy them, much like the DSD.

Just wondering to myself which is the more barbaric; forcing women and girls to continue with pregnancies they don't want or allowing them access to safe, effective procedures that will end those pregnancies for them.

Hmmmmm.

Quint I agree - saying "keeping it" and clamming up is about the girl's inablitily to handle the situation. The thing with termination is that it needs to be decided on. It can take a great deal of strength to reach that decision. I sometimes think (particularly) teenagers who continue with unplanned pregnancies do so because they couldn't face taking any real control over the situation.

Carrying on with the pregnancy isn't always a decision - it's kicking it into the long grass.