All grandparents have the benefit of interacting with their grandkids on a level that is once removed from the day-to-day responsibilities of parents. Well yes and communicating openly and honestly with your grandchildren is one of the best things you can do to help them cope with their new situation. It’s especially important to take the time to really listen to your grandkids. But, unfortunately, this was not the case with this 11-year-old girl.
According to Reuters, the 11-year-old girl was forced to deliver her baby prematurely despite requesting an ab-rtion, sparking an outcry by women’s rights campaigners. Officials said that the child, who was not identified due to her age, became pregnant after being r-ped by her grandmother’s 65-year-old boyfriend. When the girl was 5 months pregnant, she went to a public hospital to request an ab-rtion. Abortion in her country, Argentina, is only allowed when pregnancy is the result of r-pe, or when the mother’s health is at risk.
Per reports, officials took 1 month to decide on whether to go ahead with the ab-rtion, while several doctors refused to carry out the procedure, on the grounds of conscientious objection. The delays meant the pregnancy continued to 23 weeks when doctors decided it was too risky for the girl’s health to go ahead with an ab-rtion. Instead, doctors performed a caesarean section and the girl gave birth to a severely premature and underweight baby. A senior children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, Margaret, reportedly said that authorities should urgently investigate and address the barriers that unacceptably delayed her care.
“Forcing the girl to carry her forced pregnancy to term, even when this put her life in danger, is a cruel injustice that has inflicted such psychological and physical harm on the child it could amount to torture under international law,” Erika, Amnesty’s Americas director, reportedly said. The women rights groups and local rights group had filed a petition to a judge calling on the state to respect the rights and wishes of the girl to have an ab-rtion, per reports.
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