CALGARY, AB, Jan 29, 2001 (LSN.ca) – Justice Patricia Rowbotham of Alberta’s Court of Queen’s Bench has ruled that a full-term baby which died during childbirth, is not a child and therefore the parents are not due compensation for bereavement in her death. Parents Martin and Mary Bertoia were awarded $60,000 in damages for the admitted negligence of their physician, Dr. Lynn Marriott, but were refused an additional $25,000 for the loss of the baby – Kelsey Lee on the grounds that the law does not consider the baby a child. “The anomaly in this case is if Kelsey Lee Martin had been born alive and died at any time thereafter due to negligence, (the parents) would have a claim,” said Rowbotham. “The Supreme Court of Canada … (has) determined that a fetus had no legal status until it is a child, born alive and viable.”
Gwen Landolt, a lawyer for REAL Women Canada told LifeSite that the case demonstrates clearly that the courts have created a “legal fiction” by denying the humanity of the unborn child. She said it brings the integrity of the court into question since it has adopted radical feminist ideology, which flies in the face of medical and scientific fact. MP Tom Wappel and others have for some years emphasized the need for an amendment to current law to re-define the word “person” to reflect medical and scientific reality.
See the CP coverage at: https://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSTopNews/judge_jan27-cp.html