Abortion controversy

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32639, 22 June 1971, Page 17

Abortion controversy

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) LONDON, June 21. A woman gynaecologist who did an abortion, on a girl aged 12 said last night that the child was now “on the pill ” the “Daily Mail” reports. “I gave her general contraceptive advice and a free supply of oral contraceptives, togther with a prescription to last her nine months,” Dr Mary Wilson said. “I know that this will be regarded as controversial, but I regard it as the right thing to do.” The paper describes the girl as being the centre of the most crucial abortion controversy since the 1967 Abortion Act. The girl was made preg- ' nant by a playmate, aged 13. A National Health Service I specialist refused to end the ‘ pregnancy, believing it uni wise to do so because the i child was about four months : pregnant. Her abortion was i done privately, without fee, ; about 11 days later. ; Miss Jessie Muirhead, con- ■ suitant specialist to St Luke’s Hospital, Bradford, and to the

Bradford Royal Infirmary, who refused to do the abortion, said: “When I saw the girl she was about four months pregnant and I thought it both unwise and unsafe to carry out a normal termination. “To have done so might, in -my opinion, have had a 5 serious handicap on her > future life if she became ’ pregnant again. In a girl of r such tender years it could 1 render her permanently 3 sterile, and disturb her t whole mechanism.** The girl’s mother said: - "You can’t expect a 12-year- ‘ old girl to carry a baby, and ’ then look after it when she ' has to go to school. I knew she had a boy friend—she had been going with him for >• about four years—but I had e no idea that this was happene ing. - “The gynaecologist did not e talk to my girl when she s examined her. When she had s finished, she said, “I don’t ! > know what this generation is . coming to—if they act like s grown-ups, they’ve got to e stand the consequences.”