To think you can't physically force somebody to have a late term abortion?

[Cringemum]

Just that really.

I was following the thread on the feminist board about the 22yo woman with LD's, who is 22 weeks pregnant, and a judge has ordered the pregnancy be terminated against her wishes.

The thread reached the maximum amount of comments before anybody was able to shed any light on my question.

I can't fathom how she can be physically forced to go through the procedure if she refuses to comply.

Could anybody shed any light on how exactly something like this could be enforced short of physically dragging her to the hospital and restraining her.

Horrible, horrible case by all accounts and my POV is that the judge has made the wrong decision - for the mother - I'm strictly pro choice in all situations but this doesn't sit right with me at all.

Many on the previous thread strongly disagree as is their prerogative but I don't understand how she can be made to go through with a termination?

Anybody?

I'm very surprised you think a court would rule because of the popularity of a particular opinion.

I didn't mean the public I meant the women's mother. It sounds very much from her statements like she does not have her daughters best interests at heart.

@rvby - I've got an 8 year old niece. I think posters above are really downplaying this woman's ability to have at least some opinion on how she wants to proceed. It almost sounds like they are taking the stance that if she has a mental age of 6-9 she's as good as brain dead and her opinion counts for naught.

@carla1983
*
"@AnnieHawk - the way you're taking about her, it's as if she's a brain dead vegetable. I thought she is a woman with the mental age of 9."
*
Your comment perfectly demonstrates how so many people on here do not understand the concept of mental capacity. It's not treating here like a brain dead vegetable as you so delightfully put it, it's acknowledging that she does not have the intellectual or cognitive ability to understand use and communicate information and concepts to make an informed decision. You can lose this for many reasons, brain injury, dementia, severe mental illness etc. It could happen to anyone.

If she has the metal age of nine, she will likely be able to make simple decisions and choices with support. For example, whether she wants to attend a day centre or not, what food to buy in the supermarket. That is a whole deferent ball game to understanding being pregnant, giving birth, and being a mother (or rather having a baby removed from her)

This thread makes me want to scream!

Sorry it makes you want to scream but I am more concerned with the woman in question.

If it were me, I'd be absolutely furious that I was forced to have an abortion against my will even if my mental age was less than the people around me.

Indeed, whether or not you are frustrated by it, you must surely be able to see that a forced termination is an extreme measure to take against any human being, regardless of their mental capacity. I, and a great deal of other people, and apparently now three judges, feel that extreme measure could not be justified.

@carla1983 I have a 7 year old, as I said earlier - I totally get where you are coming from. The thing is though, I'm also a masters student in developmental psychology (i.e. child psychology).

Our anecdotes (your niece, my DC) are not data. How the children in our lives would feel isn't actually that important when balanced with the human lives that are affected. That's why we don't let kids have sex even if, in their opinion, they really want to. No matter how furious they are, no matter how they feel about it.

Some decisions are too far reaching for 6-9 year olds to make. Their emotions about it are sadly not the deciding factor. Feelings are temporary. The consequences aren't.

I do have enormous sympathy for your position. As I said earlier, I have literally had a forced abortion so I probably get it even more than most people do. It is a horrific situation.

I'm also not convinced that folk understand what a mental age of 6 to 9 actually means in practice

It's also, quite frankly, an exceptionally unhelpful way to frame severe learning disabilities.

As stated in my 1st post on this thread, in ways that I shan't explain any further I happen to have personal experience of this.

A "mental age of X" doesn't mean an X-year-old stuck in an aging body. At all. It means an adult person with all the urges and physicality of an adult, roughly the intellectual maturity of an X-year-old child (but with said intellect processing what happens within an adult's body) and an emotional maturity that may correspond to either or be sonewhere completely off the charts depending on the precise nature of the condition.

It's really a rather crude description more aimed at making it easier for adults of normal intelligence and no particular expertise to grasp what is different about an individual than at accurately describing that particular person's challenges.

The individual I'm personally thinking about supposedly has a mental age of around 7 or 8. But she's not capable of reading or writing the way you'd expect a child of that age to be able to. At the same time, she's a woman in her 30s with crushes and sexual feelings and desires that she is capable of expressing in words and which wouldn't be intelligible to an actual 7 or 8-year-old because their bodies just don't do that yet.

And this is but one case. I'm not sure what the right answer would be if that woman I'm talking about fell pregnant. She won't, by the way, because she's had her tubes tied (but doesn't fully realise that this means she can't have babies of her own).

It's horrible. There's no "correct" answer to this IMO. Just the spirit of empathy and sound reasoning applied jointly to try and make things as not- horrible as humanly possible for all involved.

rvby - How awful. I'm sorry you went through that.

The idea of our justice system forcing this on someone enrages me.

Even if how she feels about it, is not the main influence in the decision to force this woman to have an abortion, surely her view of it should count for something?

WomanLikeMeLM

Clearly nobody.

I'm sorry too, for everyone this has brought up bad memories for. It's brought things up for me too.

It's a rotten job being a woman.

"It's a rotten job being a woman"

@PouncerDarling - it sure is sometimes.

I have no doubt that her view counts to everyone involved, or at least the vast majority of people involved. I can't see how any solicitor, barrister, judge, sw, doctor, psychologist, etc. etc. involved in this case hasn't tried REALLY fucking hard to balance everything, including her view, health, long term health, family impact, etc. You don't work in the Court of Protection if you don't care about human suffering imo.

It's an incredibly hard one though, the fact that the case has apparently been overturned now speaks to just what a knife edge it is for all involved. No-one wants to make a decision like this. My heart goes out to the young woman involved as well as everyone else at the Court, her family, the hcps involved, etc.

The decision seems so monumental that I can understand why folk are very worked up about it. We're meant to be worked up by something like this I think. Otherwise we wouldn't care. Of course the issue is, this is one of those "which is the lesser of several evils" situations. Everyone involved must feel 100x sicker than anyone on this thread does tbh.

@carla1983
Some one on the feminist board thread was talking about proposals / recommendations to try to make the court of protection more collaborative with the person without capacity to take their wishes more into account where possible or give them greater weight.

Perhaps that is the best idea.

@GrapefruitsAreNotTheOnlyFruit

"Some one on the feminist board thread was talking about proposals / recommendations to try to make the court of protection more collaborative with the person without capacity to take their wishes more into account where possible or give them greater weight."

Yes, I think this should be the case. I think it's wrong to think their views hardly count because they have a lower mental age than the rest of us and because they must understand nothing. They understand something.

So many people showing interest because it’s about termination and pregnancy and so many people are talking about bodily autonomy and human rights. Yet, there was recently another scandalous case of horrific physical and mental abuse at a supposed “caring institution” (Whorlton Hall hospital) for people who have learning disabilities. Where is the same outrage?

I am passing no comment on the ruling as it’s clear that many people here have little insight into what it really means to lack capacity to make a decision and the complexities of a person with a learning disability.

@GrapefruitsAreNotTheOnlyFruit have you ever been to the Court of Protection? I have and judges work very hard to include the person who lacks capacity to make the decision.

The legal framework of making a Best Interests Decision, which is enshrined in law, outlines the need for the least restrictive option. The second principles of the Mental Capacity Act specifically states the person should be included, as much as possible.

Grapefruits- the Court of Protection always where in the best interest possible consider the wishes of the person. They have a very tough job.

@schuyler - Um OK. Apologies that I didn't show enough outrage for something I've never heard about before

@carla1983 I don’t recall mentioning you by name. I was passing comment on wider society and sadly, how many people with disabilities are viewed. Most people don’t give a shit about the challenges faced every day and I read a lot of the court cases.

@gingerpaleandproud If your definition of her mental capacity is correct then she has been raped and the state has failed her. Then it fails her further for intervening "in her best interests" which go against her personal wishes.

@Schuyler - sorry I thought you were referring to people like me on this thread who disagreed with the ruling

Have people even read the facts of the case?! If the girl’s mother keeps the baby, in all likelihood the girl won’t be able to live there anymore as she will be a risk to the baby! The idea of someone with the mental age of a child going through the absolutely physical and emotional, hormonal trauma of childbirth is shocking. And what life would the baby have?! I am actually not particularly keen on abortion but come the fuck on, of course this is one of the cases where it needs to happen. The girl doesn’t even understand wtf is happening.

@crispysausagerolls If it's true she doesn't understand then how can she have understood what sex was all about, and why isn't this being seen as a rape case, where the state has failed to protect her.
Her social worker supported her decision to keep the child

@carla1983 no, I just have a massive bee in my bonnet about society’s view of disability. :(