Daughter of British Woman Who Wanted Parental Notice on Abortion Has Baby 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 6, 2006
Manchester, England (LifeNews.com) — The daughter of a British woman, who filed a national lawsuit seeking to establish the right of parents to know when their minor teenage daughters are considering an abortion, has given birth.
Sue Axon lost her case at the British high court to establish the parental "right to know."
Her 17 year-old daughter, Joy, was pregnant at the time and gave birth to a girl, Morgan Booke, on March 31.
Axon pursued the case in part because she had an abortion 20 years ago and said she regretted her decision. She previously said the abortion caused her "guilt, shame and depression."
Axon has five children and Joy, her oldest, turned 17 just days before the birth of her daughter.
She told the BBC she did as much as she could with her campaign for parental involvement on abortion but her attorney told her the court case had reached the end of the line.
"There’s nowhere I can go with this now," she said. "It might take something as terrible as a young person to die," before the courts would approve parental involvement.
Axon told the BBC that her daughter did not agree with her position on having parents involved in a teen’s abortion decision, but has since changed her mind.
"She didn’t agree with it herself at first, but now she has a daughter of her own everything has changed," Axon explained. "On one hand she feels girls should have patient confidentiality, but on the other she also feels pregnant women need supporting."
In ruling on Axon’s lawsuit, Mr. Justice Silber said parents have no right to know when their teenage daughters are considering an abortion, despite the potential for severe emotional or physical complications.
To allow parents to help their daughter "may lead her to make a decision that she later regrets or seek the assistance of an unofficial abortionist," the judge claimed.
Axon said abortion is a decision many teens will regret, not opting for alternatives.
"Having endured the trauma of abortion, I brought the case to ensure that medical professionals would not carry out an abortion on one of my daughters without first informing me," she explained. "I could then discuss such a life-changing event with her and provide the support she would need."
The British mom had hoped to get the Department of Health to change its rules to allow for parental notification.
The health rules say abortion practitioners must respect the confidentiality of girls under the age of 16 if they want to have an abortion or receive reproductive health care.
