KEY POINTS:
An anguished Tauranga aunty wants her niece sterilised because the intellectually impaired woman is about to have her third baby removed and put in foster care.
The young woman is believed to be living on the streets of Auckland and is six months pregnant.
The Bay of Plenty
Times has agreed not to name both women for privacy reasons.
Gail (not her real name) is not a blood relative but is the young woman's only relation in the Bay of Plenty.
She received a letter two weeks ago from Child, Youth & Family asking her to attend a family group conference in relation to Leanne's (not real name) unborn baby, due in January.
The baby will be Leanne's third to three different fathers in three years.
"When I opened the letter and saw the logo on the letterhead, I had a sense of deja vu. It upsets me and makes me so angry. Same letter, different date," Gail said.
Leanne is known to staff at Auckland Hospital as a drug user, who often came to them to be tested and treated for STDs. It was from them that CYF found out Leanne was pregnant again.
Gail was told, when she attended the first family group conference in January 2005: "this is just the start".
"I think she needs to be sterilised," Gail said.
"I can only imagine what that's doing to her _ getting pregnant, having a child and having him taken off her and getting pregnant again.
"Nothing and no one could convince me she shouldn't be sterilised."
Gail also believed there should be a law change regarding the authority to sterilise.
Ministry of Health child and youth health chief adviser, Dr Pat Tuohy, said there was no special legislation surrounding the sterilisation of intellectually disabled woman.
"Any decision regarding the sterilisation of an intellectually disabled woman must consider the rights of the individual and be made on the basis of informed consent," he said.
In cases where women are unable to give consent or give full consent, a number of Acts of Parliament are relevant.
These include the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act, the Care of Children Act, and the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act.
Each case had to be looked at on its own merits, and in the context of the acts.
At the first family group conference Leanne had indicated she wanted to keep her baby.
Gail said she turned up with a man she had married the day before, thinking it would mean she could keep the baby.
He was not the baby's father.
Leanne's intellectual impairment was such that she could hold a normal conversation but there were some times and some topics she was very unclear on.
"She's slow, simple, I guess," Gail said.
She had seen Leanne on the street several times and said she often seemed to hang out in the city centre all day.
Leanne usually looked unkempt, Gail said _ both untidy and dirty.
"You know that homeless person down in town with the blankets. She's like that but without the blankets."
Leanne's mother had also had children removed from her home due to the level of squalor.
The Bay of Plenty Times chose not to try to speak to Leanne, due to the level of her impairment and uncertainty over whether she could comprehend being interviewed.
Gail said she was certain her niece could not care for an infant.
"She's incapable of looking after herself, let alone a baby."
Gail said the cycle of female family members having babies taken away had become "a generation thing".
"Her mother did it, her grandmother did it. This latest unborn baby is part of the fourth generation. At some stage it needs to stop."
Leanne's first baby had been mentioned in a hard-hitting series of Child, Youth and Family ads that appeared in Bay Times last year seeking foster families.
He was described as a happy, bonny 11-month-old boy who might require extra support due to a history of intellectual impairments in his family.
Gail has been told Leanne's first two babies are living with families in the Western Bay.
She fears for the future of the baby about to be born.
"That little baby will grow up and the same thing will happen again."
Gail said her niece was young and there was no reason she would not go on having a baby each year.
Communication within the family was not good, and neither Gail nor her niece were in touch with the pregnant woman's mother in Auckland.
A family group conference about Leanne's unborn baby is set to go ahead as scheduled tomorrow, though Gail says her niece will not be there as no-one knows where in Auckland to look for her.
A CYF spokesperson said there may be times when information was obtained before the birth of a baby that highlights care and protection concerns.
When CYF received notifications regarding unborn babies they will be investigated, though there were legal and practical limitations to their ability to intervene before babies were born.
She said it was only in very serious situations when a baby's safety was at risk an infant would be removed immediately upon their birth.
No child was removed from a parent's care unless the concerns were of an extreme nature.
There may be issues of family violence, mental health, addiction, previous physical abuse of children or previous neglect.
- BAY OF PLENTY TIMES
