February 22, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – An Idaho couple that traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico for an abortion is suing two Planned Parenthood branches and a Boise hospital after a failed chemical abortion left them with a living, health-challenged child, demanding the defendants help pick up the tab for their son’s care.
While six weeks pregnant, Bianca Coons and her partner Cristobal Ruiz went to Idaho for an abortion in 2016, the Albuquerque Journal reports. They claimed they were “destitute and attempting to maintain and limit the size of their family” beyond the two kids they already had, and fearing Idaho’s abortion waiting period would “result in the baby being much more advanced in development.”
According to the lawsuit, Planned Parenthood’s San Mateo facility administered the first half of a “medication” abortion (mifepristone, or RU-486), then instructed Coons to take the second half (misoprostol) later. They went home to Boise, where a day later Coons went to an ER for severe nausea and learned her still-living baby had a “strong heartbeat.” A doctor there consulted Planned Parenthood and relayed its instructions to take the second half of the chemical abortion.
Several days later, Coons requested a second medication abortion if the first failed, and was given the option of either paying for one in Idaho or getting it free if she went back to New Mexico.
By March, Coons told a Planned Parenthood staffer she couldn’t afford a “second round,” with her lawsuit stating that by this point the baby was old enough where she “could not morally sanction further action to terminate the fetus.”
Coons and Ruiz’s son was ultimately born one month premature, suffering “jaundice and blood sugar issues.” His parents fear he “may carry a defect or injury into adulthood.”
Their suit is seeking $765,000 in damages to offset the costs of raising “an additional unplanned child,” as well as damages for breach of contract, unfair trade practices, consumer protection violations, and emotional distress.
“The defendant’s failure to properly supervise and administer the abortion service directly resulted in the failure of the pregnancy termination which resulted in injury to plaintiffs’ interests in family planning and their interests in financial planning for the future of their family,” the lawsuit claims.
Neither the family’s attorney nor Planned Parenthood would comment further to the Albuquerque Journal.
“You try and kill your baby and then you’re shocked that he didn’t come out perfectly healthy?” Chicks on the Right blogger Ashley wrote in response to the story, which she said “makes me sick. Prayers for that little boy. He’s the ONLY one who gets my sympathy here.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration lists 2,207 adverse health events in women who used mifepristone between 2000 and 2011, including 14 deaths, 612 hospitalizations, 339 hemorrhages requiring transfusion, and 256 infections.