A judge in Michigan has allowed a 12-year-old girl made pregnant allegedly by her brother to have a late-term abortion in another state. The girl is almost 29 weeks pregnant but her parents did not discover her condition until three weeks ago.
Judge Pamela O'Sullivan had last week barred the parents of the girl from taking her to Kansas for the abortion. Michigan, where they live, does not allow abortion after 24 weeks unless the life of the pregnant woman is in danger.
In a scenario resembling the "X" case in Ireland several years ago, the parents had planned to bring their daughter to Kansas for the abortion when the prosecuting attorney in their county intervened to block this because of the Michigan law against late-term abortions.
Judge O'Sullivan upheld the bar on travelling and ordered the girl to undergo a psychological examination. But lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union went to court yesterday to argue successfully that the abortion should go ahead against other lawyers who said they represented the foetus.
The girl's 17-year-old brother may now be charged with criminal rape. He shared a bedroom with his sister.
The family came to Sterling Heights, a suburb of Detroit, about a year ago from India. The case has been used by the powerful lobby in the US against late-term abortions, sometimes called partial birth abortion, involving the suctioning out of the foetus's brain during delivery.
President Clinton has consistently vetoed a Republican Bill to outlaw this procedure but this week the House of Representatives voted for a second time to overturn the veto by the necessary two-thirds majority. It remains to be seen if the Senate can also muster enough votes.