AN ANTI-ABORTION campaigner is amazed that a 14-year-old girl in the UK was allowed to have a chemical termination without her mother knowing. The girl spoke to her school health worker and decided to have the procedure without informing her parents, because she was frightened to tell them.

But she changed her mind when the mother, who found out through her daughter’s school friend, said she would support her. It was too late because the foetus had already been starved of oxygen.

‘I think it is absolutely appalling that the parents were kept right out of this,’ said Angela Meadowcroft, chairwoman of Channel Islands Right to Life group.

‘What if something had gone wrong. Who would have contacted the mother then?’ she asked.

‘I believe a nurse can’t give a pupil an aspirin and yet they can tell them where to go and get a massive dose of hormones that will cause an abortion.’

She blamed the whole situation on sex education in schools.

‘Children are being told too much, too young. The parents know their children best and they should be the ones to educate them and look after them. I’m so amazed by it; it’s an abomination,’ she said.

‘It is illegal for a child of 14 to have sexual intercourse, but they are being given pills for contraception and for an abortion.

‘They might have thought that she was mature enough, but she obviously wasn’t because she changed her mind.’

She thought that abortions such as the girl’s went on more often than people realised, hitting the headlines only when something went wrong.

The mother said that the experience had left her daughter traumatised and full of regret and that the school’s actions were deplorable and took away her rights as a mother.

The law states that teachers are not legally bound to tell parents if pupils become pregnant.

According to Department of Health rules, her doctors could not tell the mother because of patient confidentiality.

Guernsey British Medical Association spokesman Dr Brian Parkin said that such a case locally would be ‘exceedingly unlikely’.

‘In theory there’s no reason it shouldn’t happen, but any doctor would be exceedingly uncomfortable about that procedure on a 14-year-old without her mother’s knowledge.’

He said that doctors would seek to persuade a girl in similar circumstances to involve a parent.

‘But I’m not aware of any similar situation locally and though theoretically it could happen, it’s something we would wish to avoid.’