Woman Can Sue Abortion Facility Anonymously Re Forced Abortion
(Melbourne, FL) A federal appeals court panel has overturned a lower court decision and ruled that a woman can proceed anonymously in her lawsuit against an abortion facility.
The three-member panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled that the woman can continue the lawsuit against the Aware Woman Center abortion facility under the name Jane Roe II.
“A number of decisions have pointed to abortion as the paradigmatic example of the type of highly sensitive and personal matter that warrants a grant of anonymity,” the panel said in the Friday ruling.
In the lawsuit, the woman accused workers at the Melbourne abortion facility of preventing her from leaving. That's in violation of the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances law, which provides civil remedies for people whose access to reproductive services is denied, the lawsuit alleges.
The woman points out that when she went to the abortion facility in March 1997 for an abortion she experienced pain in her stomach. She demanded that abortion practition William Egherman stop the abortion and call an ambulance for her.
In the lawsuit, she demonstrates that four assistants held her down while the abortion went on without her consent.
The woman was eventually taken by ambulance to an emergency room. She suffered a perforated uterus and a colon laceration, and after the remains of her unborn child was removed from her uterus, she underwent surgery to repair internal organs damaged by the abortion.
The district judge in Orlando ruled that the woman couldn't continue in the case anonymously and granted a motion to dismiss the case because the woman had failed to show that abortion facility workers prevented her from getting reproductive health services. The judge, however, allowed her to file an amended complaint, which she never did.
The appellate panel's ruling allows the woman to file an amended complaint anonymously.
“I was pleased to see it,” said Chris Sapp, one of two attorneys for the woman. “We waited a long time, but it was worth the wait.”
Sapp, of Fort Myers, Florida, said Tuesday an earlier decision by a federal judge in Orlando requiring his client's name was, he believes, the first time a woman had been barred from proceeding anonymously in an abortion case in this country. “It's very gratifying to find that the 11th Circuit is willing to protect the rights of women vis a vis abortion,” he said.
Sapp said the opposing side may seek a rehearing by the 11th Circuit and later appeal that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. If the anonymity ruling does not stand, he said, his client will drop her case against Aware Woman Center for Choice Inc. rather than reveal her identity.
Attorneys for the abortion facility had argued that past abortion cases in which the plaintiff was allowed to remain anonymous, such as Roe v. Wade, challenged government activity or laws. The case against Aware Woman Clinic didn't meet that standard.
The abortion facility in question has since closed.
(This article courtesy of Pro-Life Infonet. To subscribe, send the message “subscribe” to: infonet-request@prolifeinfo.org.)
by Rusty Pugh
(AgapePress) – A pro-life congressman has reintroduced a bill designed to prevent living babies from being thrown out like trash.
Congressman Steve Chabot of Ohio has brought back the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, which would firmly establish that an infant who is completely expelled or extracted from his or her mother, and who is alive, is considered a person for purposes of federal law.
He says in a civilized society, it seems this bill should not even be necessary, but the corrupting influence of the abortion industry has brought the most basic human right into question.
“We’ve got cases where, for example, a partial-birth abortion has been botched and a baby is born alive, and we’ve had eyewitnesses come forward saying that babies have been alive and just thrown in the trash, been left in a soiled utility closet for hours to just slowly die, babies left on sinks where they’re breathing and just treated like trash,” Chabot says.
Chabot says this bill does not imply that babies who have not yet been born should not also be protected, but the current configuration of Congress, especially the Senate, favors abortion on demand. He feels the Born Alive Infant Protection Act is at least one step in the right direction.
The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League opposes the act. According to the group’s press release, protecting living babies from being thrown out with the dirty linens is an “assault on Roe v. Wade.”
(Courtesy of Agape Press.)