Family presents Chester Borrows with abortion petition

Stuff co.nz 26 May 2015

A mother whose teenage daughter attempted suicide after a secret abortion is asking the Government to change the law so underage girls won’t undergo terminations without their parents’ knowledge.

Hillary Kieft, of Stratford, Taranaki, presented a petition calling for an amendment to the law to Whanganui MP Chester Borrows on Monday.

Kieft and her husband Peter found out that their daughter, then 15, had had an abortion organised by her school, when she attempted suicide a year later in 2010.

Six years after the procedure, their daughter still suffered from depression, and was infertile, so would never be able to have children, Keift said.

At 15, their daughter was not mature enough to have made a genuinely informed decision on her own, she said.

The reason she hadn’t wanted to tell them about her pregnancy was because she was ashamed and scared, they found out later.

“She thought that we would be disappointed in her, just the normal family stuff.”

So instead, the girls’ boarding school she attended arranged for her to have a termination through Family Planning in Hawera.

“One day she didn’t come home and I rang the school and was told she had gone to a counselling appointment, and she was dropped home later that day.”

That was the day she had had the abortion.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/68841247/Family-presents-Chester-Borrows-with-abortion-petition