Politics
Thursday September 13, 2007
New Jersey Supreme Court: Doctors Not Required to say Abortion Kills a Child
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By Hilary White
TRENTON, New Jersey, September 13, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Doctors in New Jersey are not required to inform women seeking abortion, that it will "kill not just a potential life, but an actual existing human being", the state's highest court ruled unanimously yesterday.
The case was important to the ongoing attempts to install legal protections to the unborn in the US. For decades the arguments of the abortion lobby has been that a child in the womb is not fully a human being, but only a "potential" life. The question, "When does the life a human being begin?" has been the crux of the abortion issue since it was left open by the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision.
The Supreme Court of New Jersey ruled that there is "no common law duty requiring a physician to inform a pregnant patient that an embryo is an existing, living human being and that an abortion results in the killing of a family member".
Documents from the Court say, "Clearly there is no consensus in the medical community or society supporting Acuna's position that a six-to-eight-week-old embryo, as a matter of biological fact as opposed to moral, theological, or philosophical judgment, is a complete, separate, unique and irreplaceable human being or that terminating an early pregnancy involves the actual killing of an existing human being".
In 1996, Rosa Acuna, then 29 and the mother of two other children was advised by her doctor, Sheldon Turkish, to abort her child because the six-to-eight week pregnancy was complicating her kidney disorder. Seven weeks after the abortion, Acuna started to bleed and had to be hospitalized where she was diagnosed as suffering from an "incomplete abortion." She was told by nursing staff that the doctor who aborted the baby had left body parts still inside her.
Her suit was based on her assertion that she had agreed to the abortion based on false information. She claimed damages for emotional distress and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Acuna told the court that when she asked the doctor if there was a baby inside her, he replied that it was "only blood". She said that what she needed to hear from her doctor was that she was carrying "an existing living human being." Her own research led her to believe that abortion was the same as killing a human being, her baby.
Read a summary of the Court's ruling:
http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/opinions/supreme/A-15-06%20Acuna%20v.%20Turkish...
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
First U.S. Jury To Decide if First Trimester Abortion Terminates Life
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/oct/02102902.html
Woman Sues For "Wrongful Abortion": Doctor Said Her Unborn Baby was "just some blood"
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jul/06071403.html
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