A mother who wants her disabled daughter to have a hysterectomy yesterday defended the radical move as campaigners said it could breach the teenager's human rights.

Katie Thorpe, 15, has severe cerebral palsy and her mother, Alison, wants her womb removed to stop her having to go through the discomfort and inconvenience of menstruating.

Doctors in Britain are seeking legal advice to see whether they have the proper consent to proceed with the hysterectomy on the teenager from Billericay, Essex.

Katie's mother believes she will only suffer more if she is allowed to develop into an adult and insists the benefits of surgery would far outweigh the short-term pain of an operation.

She told Sky News: "I am looking at the interests of an individual, my daughter.

"I am not suggesting that disabled children as a whole are given this operation."

But the charity Scope warned the surgery might not be in the teenager's best interests and could have "disturbing" consequences for other children.

Executive director Andy Rickell said the charity recognised it was a difficult situation and was aware of the challenges faced by families like Katie's.

But he added: "It is very difficult to see how this kind of invasive surgery, which is not medically necessary and which will be very painful and traumatic, can be in Katie's best interests.

"This case raises fundamental ethical issues about the way our society treats disabled people and the respect we have for disabled people's human and reproductive rights.

"Scope is concerned that doctors are supporting parents in this case.

"If this enforced sterilisation is approved, it will have disturbing implications for young disabled girls across Britain."

Society should adapt itself to include disabled children, rather than them being "modified" to fit society, he added.

He called on the Government to provide more financial and practical support to parents, and for extra legal safeguards to protect children, including the right to an independent advocate.

Ms Thorpe, however, scoffed at the idea that society could be adapted to accept and include disabled children more, saying: "Unfortunately we live in the real world with real people".

The case mirrors that of Ashley X, a nine-year-old American girl with the mental age of a three-month-old baby, who had surgery to keep her a child.

It emerged in January that she was given hormones to keep her weight and height down and had her womb and breast buds removed so that she would never go through puberty or become a woman.

Her parents said keeping her "frozen" as a girl would give her a better life, but the move provoked worldwide controversy.