Romania allows 11-yr-old rape victim to have abortion

Abortions can be carried out later than 14 weeks in Romania, but only to save the life of the mother.

“I want to go to school and to play. If I can’t do this my life will be a nightmare,” said a letter from the girl, read out Friday by health ministry official and committee member Vlad Iliescu.

“The girl’s mental health would be severely affected if she had a baby,” he added.

Romanian daily Evenimentul Zilei reported that the girl was depressed because other children in the village in northeast Romania where she lives were refusing to play with her because she was pregnant.

The girl’s pregnancy only became known June 2 when her parents took her to a doctor because she appeared unwell. She told doctors she had been raped by her 19-year-old uncle, who has since disappeared.

Theodora Bertzi, who was also on the committee, said that the ruling was not an effort to further liberalize abortions.

About 533 girls under the age of 15 had an abortion in 2007 in Romania, and 2,000 girls of the same age gave birth.

The girl’s family said this week they wanted to travel to Britain for an abortion, and a Romanian in Britain had offered to finance the costs.

In Britain, an abortion is legal up to 24 weeks if two doctors decide that the risk to a woman’s physical or mental health will be greater if she continues with the pregnancy than if she ends it.

There was no immediate reaction from the family to Friday’s ruling, and it was not immediately clear if they still wanted to travel to Britain.

The case has divided Romania. On Thursday, 20 anti-abortion Orthodox groups called for her to continue with her pregnancy and offered to raise the child.

Child rights groups have appealed for tolerance because she was a rape and incest victim.

The official position of the Orthodox Church, to which more than 80 percent of Romanians belong, said it was “an exceptional situation which must be treated in an exceptional manner and the family is the only one to take this decision,” church spokesman Constantin Stoica said.

He said the church considers abortion a crime, but this belief applies to normal circumstances and not to incest or rape.