Court OKs child's abortion suit

By Phillip Rawls
The Associated Press



A state appeals court has ruled that a Birmingham abortion clinic can be sued over an unsuccessful abortion that a woman blames for damaging her child's health.

The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals reversed a lower court ruling that had blocked a lawsuit filed by a woman on behalf of herself and her child. In a decision released May 26, the appeals court said the woman, identified only by her initials L.K.D.H., can sue Planned Parenthood of Alabama on behalf of her child.

Eric Johnston, a Birmingham attorney who has helped write many of the anti-abortion bills considered by the Legislature, said the decision is significant because it holds that a health care provider can be held responsible for injuries caused to a child in the womb.

"The fact it was during an abortion doesn't change that," Johnston said.


more: http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060605/NEWS02/606050317/1009

just what kind of clinic delivers "unsuccessful" abortions? I'm against abortion myself, so I'm biased, but exactly how is this clinic an improvement over the famous back alley?

and delivered a healthy baby girl 7 months later. The clinic missed the fact that there were two fertilized eggs. They got one of them, but left the other.

doors. I have never heard of an unsucessful abortion, unless the woman getting it decided to stop the process at the last moment. BTW, the condition of the child are common birth defects, I know of many children born with both conditions and to be honest I can't see how an abortion attempt would cause that kind of injuries. From the looks of who is behind this law suit, it might be just another attempt of right to life to prove how dangerous abortions are.

But my sister had a D&C in prep for another round of fertility treatments...which was not necessary because she was pregnant when they did the procedure and missed my niece. Who is perfectly sound and healthy and 22 years old now.

Of course there are rare complications with abortion, and one of them is an incomplete abortion, where the pregnancy is not ended. This woman was informed of possible complications (including death) and then chose to continue the pregnancy instead of repeating the procedure.

If this case is successful, it will be a travesty.

The law is clear: if you sign a waiver beforehand, you can't sue afterward.

They never stop.

IT had to be 20 years ago, but the US Supreme Court ruled the fact that a fetus that is HARMED can recover even the Fetus's Mother had signed her write to sue.

The issue came up in a lead battery case. The Batteries were produced by GM, who restricted the workers in the lead battery plant to men for lead can harm no only in vitro fetus BUT EVEN UNFERTILIZED OVUMS in a woman. The Supreme Court ruled that to be illegal sexual discrimination even if you accept the fact that any wavier of liability by the woman was INEFFECTIVE as to the child. Basically the Court ruled that GM could NOT protect itself from lawsuits by such fetuses and unfertilized ovums by discrimination against women who applied to work in the lead battery factory.

The Courts are quite clean on this issue, a parent can NOT waive the rights of their minor children to sue in court for injuries to such minor children, fetuses who become people and even Ovum and Sperm that combine to become a Human. That Child, Fetus, Ovum or even Sperm ONCE IT BECOMES A HUMAN BEING CAN FILE AN ACTION IN THE NAME OF THAT HUMAN BEING EVEN IF THE PARENTS OF SUCH HUMAN BEING HAD SIGNED AWAY THE PARENT' RIGHT TO SUE.

This comes up whenever a High School Football Player is injured. Such Students always sign a paper that they will NOT sue the school for any injury incurred while playing, and the courts rule such contracts illegal for a Minor can NOT sign away his or her rights AND NEITHER CAN THE STUDENT'S Parents.

Now I agree this looks like a case of the Anti-Abortion people seeing a way to attack abortion, but such inconsistency is normal in our law for as Justice Holmes wrote (paraphrasing) "The common law is NOT a law of logic but of experience". The same here, the same law that permits a fetus to sue for harm the fetus incurred also permitted Abortion on Demand for the first trimester (Roe v Wade just restored the Common Law Rule on Abortion after the States had made radical changes in the Abortion law from the 1830s till the 1960s). Thus while this is going to be used by Anti-Abortion advocates, it is NOT a direct attack on Abortion given the tradition of the COmmon law which PERMITTED BOTH ACTIONS.

What happens in a case where an abortion was planned and unsuccessful, and the fetus becomes a child (which it isn't until, at best, somewhere in the third trimester)?

Can the child still sue? Even though his/her birth was not the plan? Just asking.

But the Courts have been reluctant to hold anyone at fault if the Child is "Normal" (i.e. no birth defects). The issue is then what HARMED did the child incurred do to being born? The courts have said NONE i.e no harm just for being born (as Opposed to a harm which causes the Child to have some "defect" do to the harm, be it an unsuccessful abortion or contaminating form lead.

In IL if the mother had some sort of pre-birth testing (Down's, etc) and the testing was botched then the parent of the child can sue for damages until the child is 18. No loss of society but increased medical bills and educational stuff.

If done wrongly and someone is hurt then there may be a case. We don't know if the badly done abortion caused the injuries but I guess we will find out.

this wrong. Either the fetus is out of the womb or it's not, and it's pretty evident right away. (thinking out loud here) I suppose a botched abortion could render the patient too medically unstable to undergo a repeat abortion immediately...and then maybe it would be too late in the pregnancy to try again, or maybe the patient couldn't go through with it a second time.

Whatever, it sounds like a case of a medical error -- why couldn't the patient sue over the botched abortion itself?

It's entirely possible to miss the fetus during an abortion and patients are warned of such a thing. The symptoms of pregnancy would not go away and the patient would be urged to return for completion.

I had a miscarriage at six weeks, and part of what bled out was an egg white-type of substance with a tiny dark speck. And there was also some blood. Perhaps that was the fetus, perhaps it wasn't. Even the doctor didn't look inside or offer a scraping to "finish" the spontaneous abortion.

But I agree that she should have stayed on it. Perhaps she was bleeding heavily from the first abortion and thought it was over and she found out too late that she was still pregnant.

He was an arrogant asshole who treated the lawyers before him like crap.

Do I understand this ruling correctly? A woman who has an unsuccessful abortion attempt cannot sue for "wrongful birth" if her child is born healthy, but can sue for damages if her child is born damaged?

Excuse me, but did the abortion provider go out and drag the woman into the clinic? Didn't she go in voluntarily and ASK for the abortion? But somehow it's the health care provider who is liable for the damage to the fetus?

That's some tortured logic, there. It's all about terrorizing abortion providers out of business.

If nothing else, this case illustrates why abortion is such a controversial subject. If the child had been killed as a fetus, there would be no grounds for a suit.

By the way, I'd like to see how this law suit turns out. The jury may throw it right out of court. On the other hand, it may choose to punish the clinic for doing something that is perfectly legal. There may be a settlement ahead of time simply because the defendant isn't willing to trust a jury. Again, even though I am against abortion I think the abortion had nothing to do with the birth defects. This case sounds like a legal form of extortion to me.

I posted mistakenly. Although I think Judge Murcock is terribly wrong in this case, he was not the arrogant asshole I remember. That was another judge. My apologies.

Article doesn't state if the abortion was surgical or medical. If it was a medical abortion (pills), the chance of birth defects from an incomplete abortion are high. But again, the patient would have been informed of the risks and signed a release before the procedure. If she decided to continue the pregnancy, she was aware the baby could be born with defects with no liability to the clinic. Here's some information, from Planned Parenthood's site:

"Medication abortion with methotrexate is about 92-96 percent effective. With mifepristone, it is from 96-97 percent effective. Methotrexate and misoprostol can cause serious birth defects. If a medication abortion does not work, a vacuum aspiration abortion must be done."

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/files/portal/medicalinfo/abortion/pub-medical-abortion.xml

Because of state requirements that Planned Parenthood educate patients, there's no way this woman can say she wasn't aware of the risks.

That says it all. Someone didn't do the proper follow-up, whethter it was the clinic or the patient.

She was instructed what to do if she had complications while at home. The ball was in her court; she is responsible for her health and that of her child's since she did not follow the advice of medical professionals.

for anything but a surgical abortion--pills only work on zygotes, not fetuses (more or less.)At least that's my understanding.

This is outrageous propoganda--some bright Republican Trial Lawyer is about to make a nuisance of himmself on this one. I suppose that's ok if it's done for The Lord.

Tetratogenic or congenital? "her daughter being born with injuries that included a hole in her heart and an inverted tube leading from her lungs to her heart, "causing her body not to be able to receive enough oxygen."

Not enough information, but it sounds like it might be Tetraolgy of Fallot. Or Total anonomolous pulmonary venous return. Both one of the more common heart/lung defects with causes not known.

What is also very concerning, is this lawsuit could open doors for blaming women themselves for congential/tetratogenic defects. Such as choosing to have a abortion that failed.
Even though the lawyer says Lets blame the "health provider" Bullshit.

As Mr. Johnston stated "the decision is significant because it holds that a health care provider can be held responsible for injuries caused to a child in the womb."

So it seems this would also open the door for doctors to be sued when something goes wrong after an amniocentisis, despite the fact that a woman signs waivers and is informed of the possible risks.

I wouldn't be an OB for all the money in the world. There are a hundred million things that could go wrong with any pregnancy from natural causes. In addition to being on call 24/7, working week-ends, evenings, and nights, and having a group of patients who are often hormonal and anxious, OB's can tack on to this list of "perks" that they also get to take the blame for babies born with problems, and pay for it out of their pockets.

"...she blamed the unsuccessful abortion for resulting in her daughter being born with injuries that included a hole in her heart and an inverted tube leading from her lungs to her heart, "causing her body not to be able to receive enough oxygen."


Um, can an unsuccessful abortion cause an inverted tube leading from the lungs to the heart? Has anyone ever heard of this?

Even if negligence is proven if it didn't cause the injury she is out of luck.

this woman agreed to "damaging her childs health" (which was not yet a child)
because she agreed to getting an Abortion.

Just another WingFuckingNut:freak: chip at Roe vs. Wade.

I am so sick of them! :puke: