Miss D case - Free to travel

[stephenite]

Very surprised that there has been no discussion on here about this case. My own views are that  the fact that the HSE intervened in this case and the trauma visisted on this young girl at a very difficult time was a terrible disgrace - but again I have been reading press reports and listening to an odd bit of radio so I accept I may not be fully informed.

But as I understand it this young girl was pregnant, and medical opinion was generally in agreement that even if the foetus managed to survive the length of the pregnancy it has pretty much no chance of survival once it was born, the girl in question was of the legal age to make her own decision in the regard, but someone decided that she shouldn't be allowed to travel to have the termination. Whilst there was some concern about her mental state given some domestic, physical abuse that occured it certainly wasn't to the extent that allowed the authourities act in the way they did.

Now that's a rather simplistic interpretation of the events as I understand them so feel free to correct me if they're wrong, but what are peoples views on this?

[dublinfella]

wasnt the point of all this is that she was in care and by definition had her travel restricted. if the social workers and councellors working with her helped her over to england they may have been breaking the law and sought guidance from the courts. the last referendum made it a criminal offence to help someone procur an abortion so they were caught between a rock and a hard place.

[stephenite]

From what I can gather, because she was of the legal age to make medical decisions on her own behalf this wasn't a valid argument and the HSE admitted it had no legal right to stop her travelling anywhere.


Any chance you can validate the comment you made re Brian Cowen on another thread?