Girl, 12, wins Queensland Supreme Court backing for abortion

A 12-year-old girl was forced to get permission from Queensland’s Supreme Court for an abortion.

A 12-year-old girl was forced to get permission from Queensland’s Supreme Court for an abortion after falling pregnant to another child.

The girl, identified in court documents only as “Q”, had spent a month seeking an abortion, first dealing with a GP, before seeing a social worker, two specialist ­obstetricians and a psychiatrist, before it was deemed a court order would be required under Queensland’s criminal laws.

She had fallen pregnant nine weeks earlier to a child of about the same age. The boy was unaware of the pregnancy, according to court documents.

Central Queensland public health workers took the matter to court after doctors, the girl and her parents all agreed that she was mature enough to consent to the abortion, and that continuing the pregnancy could cause her physical and emotional harm.

In a judgment delivered on April 20, but only published yesterday, the Supreme Court ­ordered that she be allowed to take the drugs Mifepristone and Misoprostol to terminate the pregnancy by April 23.

If the drugs failed to cause the abortion, the court ordered that the pregnancy be terminated via surgery today. In an affidavit to the court, she said the pregnancy had been “very stressful”.

“She reports that ‘earlier this year and during periods of emotional distress’, she ran away from home, cut herself and attempted suicide on two occasions,” judge Duncan McMeekin said.

The girl had “significant difficulties in adjusting” to her ­parents’ separation, Justice McMeekin said, before citing a psychiatrist who examined her.

“I am concerned that, with her recent history of self-harm and thoughts of suicide, having to ­proceed with the pregnancy is likely to precipitate further similar ­decompensations in (the girl) and an increased risk of resuming patterns of self-harm,” the psychiatrist told the court.

Justice McMeekin said he sought evidence from the girl so that he was confident it was her own informed view the abortion go ahead. “Q’s consent to the procedures does not of course make them lawful … but (sections) 224 and 225 (of Queensland’s Criminal Code) still make those actions ­unlawful unless authorised or justified by law.”

He said the risk of harm to the girl meant that the court could ­legally order the abortion.

The Australian Christian Lobby’s Wendy Francis said “with adequate support” the child could deliver the baby and place it up for adoption. “There is also the question as to what responsibility there is to inform the father of the pregnancy,” she said.

James Cook University professor of obstetrics Caroline de Costa, an advocate for abortion law reform, said doctors were “being very cautious because of the way the law is written”.

“There is caution on the part of doctors in the case of a 12-year-old,” Dr de Costa said.

“Doctors intending to perform the procedure must now speak with the young woman and determine whether she is legally ... competent, whether she can make a decision herself about whether she should terminate the pregnancy or not.”

In 2008, a Queensland judge gave a pregnant 12-year-old girl, who had the intellect of a six-year-old, permission to undergo a late-term abortion.

Under Queensland law, it is ­illegal to administer a drug, use force or “any other means” while intending to procure an abortion. However, an abortion can be lawful if a doctor decides it is necessary to avoid danger to a woman’s mental and physical health.