By Gudrun Schultz
TRETON, New Jersey, July 14, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A woman seeking justice for almost nine years in a “wrongful abortion” case will be heard by the New Jersey state Supreme Court, the Star Ledger reported Thursday.
Rosa Acuna sued her doctor for telling her that the child she was carrying at seven weeks gestation was not a baby, when he advised her to abort the high-risk pregnancy. The 29-year-old mother of two suffered from a kidney disorder. Mrs. Acuna says Dr. Sheldon Turkish told her, “Don’t be stupid, it’s just some blood,” when she asked if there was a baby present in her womb at that stage of pregnancy.
A severe haemorrhage three weeks after the abortion resulted in her emergency hospitalization, where a nurse told her, “the doctor left parts of the baby in you,” according to court papers. She sued on grounds that she decided to abort based on “erroneous information.”
Dr. Turkish said he did not remember Mrs. Acuna’s question, but he stated that if asked, he would have told her that a “seven-week pregnancy is not a living human being.”
An appeals panel this spring decided the case should go before a jury, who would decide if it was misleading to make a factual statement that a first-trimester abortion did not end the life of a complete, human being. Dr. Turkish appealed that decision, and the Supreme Court then stepped in and agreed to hear the case.
A similar case, also represented by attorney for Mrs. Acuna, Harold Cassidy, is underway in South Dakota. In Planned Parenthood v. Rounds, the abortion provider sued S.D. Governor Mike Rounds and Attorney General Larry Long for a 2005 law that they say violates the free speech rights of abortion doctors. The law requires abortionists to tell pregnant women that abortion will end the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.
See previous LifeSiteNews coverage:
New Jersey Court Rules Jury Must Decide If Abortion Terminates a Life
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/apr/06040705.html