Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

I cannot believe that there is still a question of when life begins after the photos from Newsweek and other publications…we all know when life begins…some of us just do not want to admit it…

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — A doctor has no duty to tell a woman
considering an abortion that her embryo is an "existing human being," a
unanimous New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, averting a trial
over when human life begins.

The decision, citing past rulings,
said the court "will not place a duty on doctors when there is no
consensus in the medical community or among the public" on when life
begins.

The 5-0 Supreme Court ruling reversed a unanimous ruling by a three-judge appeals panel.

"On
the profound issue of when life begins, this court cannot drive public
policy in one particular direction by the engine of the common law when
the opposing sides, which represent so many of our citizens, are
arrayed along a deep societal and philosophical divide," Justice Barry
T. Albin wrote for the court.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed
by a woman who accused a doctor of failing to give her enough
information before she signed a consent form for him to perform an
abortion.

Rose Acuna questioned whether Dr. Sheldon C. Turkish
misled her in 1996 about the development of the pregnancy, then in the
sixth or seventh week.

She was 29 at the time and had two
daughters following a miscarriage when she consulted Turkish, who had
delivered her second child.

"According to Acuna, Turkish told her
that she ‘needed an abortion because (y)our kidneys are messing you
up,’" court papers said. "Acuna asked Turkish whether ‘the baby was
already there.’ According to Acuna, Turkish replied, ‘Don’t be stupid,
it’s only blood.’"

Acuna signed a consent form, and Turkish did
the abortion. Bleeding continued, however, and seven weeks later Acuna
went to a hospital. She was diagnosed with an incomplete abortion and
had another procedure.

"According to her, one of the nurses
caring for her explained that the procedure was necessary because
Turkish ‘had left parts of the baby inside of (her).’ Thus, Acuna
concluded based on the reference to ‘the baby’ that she had given
consent to an abortion based on erroneous information," the appellate
panel wrote last year.

Acuna, now 40, says she suffered emotional distress for the death of an unborn child.

Lawyers Acuna and the doctor did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jrs9m50NDTbUyvg4Gy0ZyVfdRedg