Judge orders abortion for disabled woman (Florida)

World Net Daily ^ | 5-23-03 | WND

[cgk]

MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH

Judge orders abortion
for disabled woman

28-year-old also to undergo tubal ligation to bar future pregnancies

---

Posted: May 23, 2003
4:45 p.m. Eastern

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

A Miami judge has ruled a mentally disabled rape victim should have an abortion because the pregnancy could be life-threatening, according to local press reports.

The woman, whose identity is not being revealed, is mentally retarded with the cognitive abilities of a 4-year-old, deaf, prone to having seizures and has a shunt in her brain to drain excess fluid.

Police believe the woman was raped, and likely more than once.

Medical experts say carrying the pregnancy to full-term would be dangerous for her and may result in the baby being deformed. The mother of the woman asked for the pregnancy to be terminated.

"My main concern now is my daughter, she told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "When I heard that heartbeat, you will never know what it did to me. But I can't be asked to choose between my grandchild or my daughter."

Doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital scheduled an abortion for last week, reports the Sun-Sentinel, but chose not to perform it because the baby appeared to be developing normally and there was no medical reason to terminate the pregnancy.

Yesterday, the woman's newly appointed guardians asked the court to decide the fate of the 23-week-old unborn baby.

"My baby no more" the disabled woman reportedly told the judge at the hearing.

Lewis Fogle, the woman's court-appointed attorney, told Circuit Judge Arthur Rothenberg that after looking into the case and communicating with her as much as he could, he concluded she wanted an abortion.

In a brief order issued today, Rothenberg agreed to the abortion and also ordered the 28-year-old woman to undergo a tubal ligation to prevent future pregnancies, reports the Miami Herald.

Rothenberg also ordered a DNA sample from the unborn baby be preserved so that police can identify the rapist, according to the paper.

The ruling may have an effect on the controversial case of a disabled 22-year-old Orlando woman who was also raped while under the care of Florida child-welfare authorities.

As WorldNetDaily reported, Gov. Jeb Bush intervened in the case, requesting a guardian be appointed to represent the interests of the unborn baby.

His involvement came after officials with the Department of Children & Families, or DCF, initially filed an emergency petition asking a circuit judge in Orlando to appoint separate guardians for the woman and the child, but later dropped the request, citing a 1989 Florida Supreme Court ruling in a landmark abortion-rights case.

Bush, who opposes abortion, overruled the agency and ordered lawyers to seek a guardian for the unborn baby.

"Given the facts of this case, it is entirely appropriate that an advocate be appointed to represent the unborn child's best interests in all decisions," Bush said in a statement. "While others may interpret this case in light of their own positions, we see it as the singular tragedy it is, and remain focused on serving the best interests of this particular victim and her unborn child."

The ACLU, along with the National Organization for Women and Center for Reproductive Rights, filed a court brief asking the court to deny the governor's request, claiming such a judgment would go against precedent that a "fetus" is not a person.

Previous article:

Governor seeks guardian for unborn baby

[MHGinTN]

"This is a normally developing fetus we are discussing here, a potential human being one step away ..." Actually, Professor, I would contend (using sceintific evidence) that this is not a 'potential human being one step away', this is in fact a fully human being, and has been for sometime now. We are not weighing the right to life of a potential human being and a severely retarded human being, we are weighing the right to life of two equally human BEINGS, albeit they are at different ages along the continuum of lifetimes already up and running.

[Salvation]

**This is a normally developing fetus we are discussing here,**

Let the baby be born. It can always be adopted.

[Old Professer]

What protection will this woman have after the termination of her pregnancy? Her pronosis is not good; she is currently close to that magical "vegetative state" from which no one returns.

Surely you do not think that this same court will hesitate to convert her post-pregnancy condition into a waiting-donor status.

[John Beresford Tipton]

"Is this the SCOFLAWS .."

There is great encouragement in your tag "With God all things are possible:"

In His own time he might reform the above to:
"Are these the SCOFFLAWS..." ( He needn't change "the")

[dram]

Jeb really needs to take a hard look at the social services problem we are having in my state of Fl.

It is already out of control here. We need some real accountability. We have thousands of children languishing and lost in the system down here.

I don't think this was a good case for the Gov. to come out on. It makes it seem like he cares for the unborn, yet once a child is born he wants to wash his hands of the problem. I don't understand why the lives of the children in the system here are not getting the same press that this did.

If only people cared as much about the living.

[cherry_bomb88]

op...thanks for the ping...this is a devastatingly sad case indeed.

cgk...I agree with you...23 weeks??? that's almost 6 months...give her a few more weeks, say to 30 weeks and they can deliver it C-section...if the grandma doesn't want to take care of it, I have a client that is CRYING for a child and can't find one to adopt...she can't have kids of her own. She's been trying for 4 years to adopt. (so much for the pro-killing crowd saying there's too many babies and not enough parents)

ummm, Big '88, meek, FBD, unpsun, chicagolad (((((((((((ping)))))))))))...thought you might want to see this

[Scothia]

Once again, an adult commits a heinous act and a baby gets the death penalty. God help us all.

[cherry_bomb88]

BTW...saw a cool bumper sticker yesterday that would apply here:

IF IT'S NOT A BABY, YOU'RE NOT PREGNANT

[Old Professer]

A friend of mine since 1st grade has epilepsy; she had two children while on medication. One child had a defective heart valve and has had several operations since the age of 6 but is otherwise in great health and has children of her own. Her sister is a perfectly healthy mother of two beautiful girls; they are my "adopted" nieces.

If it's perfection you seek, you must always be disappointed.

[oceanperch]

sorry folks web tv has been doing this for weeks now.

[Old Professer]

Actually, it is far more difficult than determining the relative worth of two equal beings -- on the one hand we have a severly disabled woman with no hope of a normal or even rational existence and a developing baby with no determined defects at this stage of development; were we to make a decision based on worth to society, we could hardly conclude that at this juncture the better decision has been made.

Abortion means one dies and that is forever; allowing the pregnancy to continue is as simple as feeding the pregnant mother and not interfering with the process; perhaps both mother and baby are already doomed, we do not know.

But, if we kill one or the other by overt act, we have assured the outcome for that then unequal being.

[Calpernia]

Curious. I have NOT read the article yet ( in the middle of an install )

How can the doctors say anything? Isn't that patient confidentiality violation?

[hocndoc]

(I don't usually say "My God!" I'm saying it here to call on God)

My God, why are they aborting rather than delivering???? The doctors don't believe there's a danger, why should the guardians, the judge and his or her grandmother ask for an abortion?

At 23 weeks, the intervention of an abortion - even the probable partial birth abortion -is much more dangerous than allowing labor to begin on its own. If there is some reason to begin labor early, there is no reason not to wait for the necessity. Statistically, the safest procedure would be a term delivery. If there are medical complications, a C-section would be safer than artificial dilatation of the cervix and delivering a child, even without the manipulations within the mother's body that will be necessary to ensure a dead child.



Also, if I were the lawyer of the father/rapist, I'd be very interested in the judge's consulting the mother. If the pregnant woman can indicate her preference for "my baby no more," then why couldn't she consent to sex?

[Old Professer]

You choir forms on the left, this is a case of a man ordering the death of a child awaiting birth, not a neglected member of a dysfunctional society -- how can I make you understand, man cannot kill the innocent without killing a part of himself and all of us who stand by and allow it to happen?

[Calpernia]

Everything you said is correct. ( be patient with me....freeping in the middle of an install )

>>>>Again, there are tests for these things

But, there are not pre natal birth tests for all meds. Some have post natal affects. Ok...booting again for now.

[hocndoc]

The woman will deliver.

That is a given and a fact of the situation that she is in. None of us forced any thing, the rapist did.

The only question now is whether she will give birth to a child who is purposely killed at or before birth or whether the child's right to life will be respected.

[dion]

Well said. I too get tired of extremists on both sides.

[hocndoc]

do we now kill all deformed children? Why stop there - we could kill the pregnant woman, too, since she's deformed.

The doctors are not the ones asking for the abortion. The court appointed guardians are.

Last week the doctors decided **not** to do an abortion, since the pregnancy was progressing normally, which I assume implies a "normal" child.

The only thing that has changed is the guardians and the judge have interfered.

[Texas Eagle]

Ooooooooh......so close yet so far away.....if only you had read another two paragraphs.

[ChemistCat]

I'm not seeking perfection. Where do you get that?

I also apologize--I'm having to read now in a window that doesn't let me see much at a time, HUGE text size, and I honestly didn't see that there was discussion past cgk's first post. So my response to the one post was uninformed by subsequent posts.

Nearly everyone DOES draw a line here. Tubal pregnancies are not viable, but there's a baby there. We lack the technology to move the baby to where it can safely develop, and if it is left where it implanted, it AND its mother will die. Hardly anyone would require the mother to die along with her baby--but the surgical procedure that saves her life is the proximate cause of her baby's death.

This young woman is emotionally and intellectually barely out of infancy. Good grief. Imagine your preschooler having to face the discomforts and miseries of pregnancy. Add her very significant health risks to this. If she truly is at high risk of more brain damage or death from a few more weeks of pregnancy, then her mother may be making the best choice. More brain damage would probably put her into coma status. If you've ever had to care for an adult who was completely incapacitated, you know you don't risk that. At this point she is somewhat functional. Retaining that level of functionality is important.

All I was saying is that this couldn't possibly be a painless, easy choice for the woman's mother. I KNOW from what she said that if she could somehow take that baby and carry it herself, she'd do it without hesitation. Technology may get us to that point yet, making it a simpler thing to call all of these babies viable, and eliminating the NEED for abortions of convenience, or even abortions like this one.

But this is no abortion for convenience. Morally, this is much like saving a woman from a tubal pregnancy.

One more thing: the tubal ligation that has been ordered may be because the daughter enjoyed the sex she cannot legally consent to having. Rape, legally, need not involve coersion if the victim cannot legally consent. A 12 year old cannot legally consent, but I'm sure we all remember promiscuous 12-year-old girls from our late elementary days. We don't know the facts about this--and there's no question that the man who did this is scum. Scum. Total scum, using up oxygen he doesn't deserve.

Perhaps, however, it was more seduction than brutal rape. (If there is a witness, why didn't he/she STOP it? I gather that the pregnancy is the only evidence they have that rape took place.) The human body is programmed to enjoy sexual activity, and once someone starts having it, it takes pretty serious security to prevent it from happening again. Florida, obviously, can run neither an election nor security to protect its wards of the court.

If she wasn't hurt enough to get anyone else's attention sooner than 23 weeks, I suspect he merely awakened her grown-up body's natural appetite, and didn't give a fig that she wasn't cognitively capable of the decision to do it.