A US County department and an abortion clinic have been accused of pressuring a teenager into terminating her pregnancy.
The 15-year-old’s parents have sued a Virginia County Department of Social Services for removing the girl from her father’s custody and taking her to the clinic.
They’re seeking A$15 million in compensatory damages and A$8 million in punitive damages.
The lawsuit claims a department employee caused the teenager to experience physical and emotional side effects and that she and clinic staff interfered with the parents’ rights.
The parents claimed their daughter intended to have the baby, but had told her mother that the department was pressuring her to have an abortion against her will.
They alleged that when the teen was at three months gestation, she was removed from her father’s custody and placed with a family friend.
She was then taken to the clinic and given abortion pills to terminate the pregnancy.
The lawsuit suit alleges the girl was upset throughout the process and initially refused to cooperate.
The complaint also alleges that legal consent was never obtained, accusing the clinic, the doctor and the department of violating her parents’ rights.
The family’s lawyer says the teenager believes that she “has killed her baby. That’s how she looks at it.”
