Aborted Alabama embryo sues for ‘wrongful death’
by Michael Cook | 24 Mar 2019 |
In a major first in America’s never-ending war over abortion, an Alabama judge has recognised the legal rights of an aborted foetus. This gives a man whose girlfriend had a chemical abortion at six weeks in 2017 the right to sue the manufacturer of the pill she used and the abortion clinic.
The decree explicitly states that “Baby Roe” is a person and allows the plaintiff, Ryan Magers, to name the foetus as a co-plaintiff in the suit for “wrongful death”. “It’s the first time in the country that an aborted foetus has been recognised as having legal rights,” his lawyer said.
Abortion-rights groups said that the decision sets a dangerous precedent and undermines women’s right to abortion.
What makes this possible is an amendment to the Alabama Constitution which was approved by 59% of voters in last November’s election. The amendment made it state policy to "recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, including the right to life".
A spokesperson for Personhood Alabama, an anti-abortion group that has been assisting in the suit, declared that Baby Roe “was cruelly robbed of life and silenced before entering the world or being able to personally voice complaint in court”.
Randall Marshall, of the American Civil Liberties Union in Alabama, called the judge’s decision “disturbing,” but predicted that Magers’s lawsuit would ultimately fail.
Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at New York University, said that such cases are “chipping away at the framework that allows abortion, by trying to protect foetal life and drawing a moral equivalency between a foetus and newborn”.
However, he pointed out, “biological development matters in terms of how we treat an embryo or a foetus legally and morally,” and many Americans who support reproductive rights feel queasy about third-trimester abortions.
Michael Cook is editor of BioEdge
This is not an appropriate venue for a discussion of my age, but I think that most readers will sympathise with my occasional interest in turning the clock back a few years. What if the hoary adage, "you're only as old as you feel", could have the force of law?
Last year, a flamboyant positivity guru tested this theory in a Dutch court by applying to have his legal age changed from 69 to 49. To no one's surprise, he lost, but the reasoning for the adverse judgement was peculiar (as reported in the media, anyway). The court declared that too much government paperwork depends upon an agreed biological age. At a time when self-identification for gender is widely accepted, this line of reasoning is surprisingly weak.
Which brings me to an intriguing article in the Journal of Medical Ethics (see below) which supports the notion of self-defining age. The author bases it on the need to prevent discrimination on the basis of age, or ageism. I wonder how the courts will respond to this argument.
Last year, a flamboyant positivity guru tested this theory in a Dutch court by applying to have his legal age changed from 69 to 49. To no one's surprise, he lost, but the reasoning for the adverse judgement was peculiar (as reported in the media, anyway). The court declared that too much government paperwork depends upon an agreed biological age. At a time when self-identification for gender is widely accepted, this line of reasoning is surprisingly weak.
Which brings me to an intriguing article in the Journal of Medical Ethics (see below) which supports the notion of self-defining age. The author bases it on the need to prevent discrimination on the basis of age, or ageism. I wonder how the courts will respond to this argument.
 Michael Cook Editor BioEdge |  |  |  |
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Her work laid the foundation for fertility and embryology legislation in the UK. BioEdge
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