Pregnant by her mother’s killer, woman saves injured arm by aborting baby

İZMİR

A woman in southwestern Turkey has aborted her baby, in a case that has aroused national controversy, after her boyfriend accused of wounding her and killing her mother, Doğan News Agency has reported.

The male suspect, identified only as Gökhan A., is currently in prison for raiding the family’s home in İzmir’s Fethiye district on Feb. 8, killing Şule Kocaoğlu with a hunting rifle and wounding her daughter, Ayşe Kocaoğlu.

According to Turkish media reports, Gökhan A. was enraged after Ayşe Kocaoğlu, his girlfriend for five months, wanted to separate.

Tepecik Training and Research Hospital, to where the injured woman was taken, then also found out that she was two months pregnant. According to Kocaoğlu, doctors refused to abort the baby to save the arm, which had become infected after she was shot. The doctors insisted that her jailed ex-boyfriend’s written consent was needed to perform the abortion.

The İzmir representative of the “We Will Stop The Murders Of Women Platform,” Sanem Deniz Kural, has questioned whether the hospital’s refusal to perform the abortion was because the man’s consent was necessary, claiming that this is not required according to Turkish law.

“This state hospital arbitrarily prevents abortions,” Kural said, adding that fewer hospitals now accept such patients since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently equated abortion with murder.

“I already have two children. If I lose my arm, I cannot raise a third one,” Kocaoğlu was quoted as saying by Turkish media recently, asking the state to help her.

Following the Health Ministry’s intervention, Kocaoğlu aborted her baby at the hospital on Feb. 26, a day after the medical council of the institution organized an extraordinary meeting about the incident and gave the go-ahead for the abortion.

A public official has also been appointed to assist Kocaoğlu, who is not at risk of losing her arm anymore.