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Court-ordered abortion, sterilization of Catholic woman in Mass. overturned by higher court
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/court-ordered-abortion-sterilization-of-catholic-woman-in-mass.-overturned ^ | 1/18/2012 | Ben Johnson

Posted on 01/18/2012 4:32:03 PM PST by Morgana

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, January 18, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – On Tuesday, the Massachusetts Appeals Court threw out a lower court’s ruling that would have forced a mentally ill woman to undergo an abortion and be forcibly sterilized against her will.

Norfolk Family and Probate Court Judge Christina Harms had ruled on January 6 that the 32-year-old could be “coaxed, bribed, or even enticed…by ruse” until she was sedated for the procedures.

The woman, who is identified only by the pseudonym “Mary Moe,” is approximately five months pregnant.

Moe, who suffers from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, had a previous abortion in her history. She reportedly described herself as “very Catholic,” and told the court she “wouldn’t do that (abortion)” again. However, despite the testimony of a court-appointed specialist determined Moe would not choose abortion, and the fact that Moe herself reportedly became “agitated and emotional’’ when Judge Harms mentioned her previous abortion, the judge ruled that the specialist’s findings were inconclusive.

Instead, Harms ruled that Moe was not mentally competent to decide whether to have the baby, and said that if she were mentally competent, she would choose to have an abortion so she could resume taking medication to treat her illness. She added that Moe’s opposition to abortion stemmed from her “substantial delusional beliefs.” Although no one had sought sterilization, Harms also ordered Moe sterilized “to avoid this painful situation from recurring in the future.” The request that Moe abort originated with the state Department of Mental Health.

Appellate Court Associate Justice Andrew R. Grainger overruled the decision, noting Harms’ orders contradicted a 1982 state Supreme Court ruling allowing all the right to procreate. He added that Harms “simply produced the [sterilization] requirement out of thin air.” Another judge in a lower court will make a final ruling.

Pro-life advocates expressed thanks at the Appeals Court’s decision and dismay at the original ruling.

Terry Donilon, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston, told LifeSiteNews.com the original ruling was “outrageous.”

“It’s barbaric to force anyone to undergo a sterilization or abortion,” constitutional expert John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute told LifeSiteNews.com. “To force someone to go against their clearly expressed religious beliefs” is a clear violation of the First Amendment, he added.

“It’s not up to the state to determine who has a child and who doesn’t,” he said. “If permitted, it’s totalitarian.”

“The nation should take note at how close we are coming to the forced abortion policy of communist China,” Troy Newman of Operation Rescue wrote in a statement e-mailed to LifeSiteNews.com. “Can we now dispense with the ‘pro-choice’ label?”

“The abortion cartel has never wanted choice. They exist on an insatiable diet of more and more abortion.”

Others were surprised such measures were still being performed in the name of public health. “I didn’t realize that forced sterilizations were going on anywhere,” said Howard Trachtman of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Massachusetts. Daniel Pollack of Yeshiva University, said, “My guess is it happens a lot more than we know.”

The case demonstrates “the lingering shadow of eugenics, which has never left the ‘progressive’ agenda, despite its ugly history,” Father Shenan J. Boquet, president of Human Life International, http://hli.org told LifeSiteNews.com.

Although Harms prescribed a compulsory abortion to help stop Moe’s mental illness, abortion may have triggered her psychological issues in the first place. Court records show Moe had a “psychotic break” after her abortion and has been hospitalized numerous times for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

In 2003, researchers at the Elliott Institute found women with a history of previous abortion were nearly three-times as likely to have bipolar disorder, and a 2002 study by the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry observed that post-abortive women were being hospitalized for mental illnesses including schizophrenia.

In 2011, Dr. Priscilla Coleman of Bowling Green State University found nearly 10 percent of all mental illness in post-abortive women was “attributable to abortion.”

Brian Camenker, director of MassResistance, told LifeSiteNews.com, “this shows is just how dangerous these lower courts are.” Harms, who was appointed by Governor Michael Dukakis in 1989, retired on January 11. Camenker, who has long observed judicial trends in his home state, ranked Dukakis “probably the second worst [governor] in memory” for judicial appointments.

Fr. Boquet said he is happy the appeals court rejected “the extreme nature of the initial judge’s decision.”

“This young mother certainly needs help, not more violence in her life,” he wrote. “We pray that she is able to get the help she needs.”


TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events; Moral Issues
KEYWORDS: abortion; catholic; prolife; sourcetitlenoturl; sterilization
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I thought forced sterilization was outlawed. Plus they force her to have an abortion because she is mentally ill? Have a feeling she is mental because of her first abortion.
1 posted on 01/18/2012 4:32:12 PM PST by Morgana
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To: Morgana

There’s so much wrong here that I don’t know where to start. I think instead, I’ll just go pray for all involved. There’s some serious demonic infestation influencing these folks.


2 posted on 01/18/2012 4:35:44 PM PST by surroundedbyblue (Live the message of Fatima - pray & do penance!)
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To: Morgana
What the...? Oliver Wendell Holmes is alive and well ( and appropriately renamed "Harms"). :-(
3 posted on 01/18/2012 4:42:28 PM PST by Tabi Katz
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To: Morgana
What the...? Oliver Wendell Holmes is alive and well ( and appropriately renamed "Harms"). :-(
4 posted on 01/18/2012 4:42:54 PM PST by Tabi Katz
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To: Morgana
It's quite frightening to think that a judge has the right to have people sterilized against their will. The courts don't even sterilize serial rapists.

I have a family member living in MA who is bipolar. When she is on her meds, she is very normal. What gives a judge the right to make a judgement on an individual's reproductive freedom.

These Liberal's are downright scary. (I'm just assuming he/she's a Liberal. That's the only thing that makes sense since most Lib's believe they have all the answers.)

5 posted on 01/18/2012 4:43:52 PM PST by mia
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To: Morgana

MA
queers can get married
have access to kids
take kids into their homes and raise them
teach turd poking is normal in schools to little 5 year olds
force women to never have a baby ,until the court of appeals made sense>
make the woman kill her baby.
defend killing babies but give small sentences to homosexual child molesters
not mother and father on a B/C or marriage certificate
OH and you can’t buy fireworks in the state as it is illegal and you cannot purchase beer or wine at a gas station like so many north east states

you bet that MA is one messed up state.


6 posted on 01/18/2012 4:44:05 PM PST by manc (Marriage is between one man and one woman.Trolls get a life, I HATE OUR BIASED LIBERAL MEDIA.)
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To: mia

George Bernard Shaw would be so proud as would Hitlers Hench men and the communists.


7 posted on 01/18/2012 4:46:36 PM PST by manc (Marriage is between one man and one woman.Trolls get a life, I HATE OUR BIASED LIBERAL MEDIA.)
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To: mia

here is the nut Bernard shaw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBZsTf6oLfY

Maybe they will be having to justify your existence soon like the left have always wanted.

The left shout bigots etc because many of them deep down are so full of hate, bigotry and sick ideas they they think if they call others it will deflect attention from whom they really


8 posted on 01/18/2012 4:49:02 PM PST by manc (Marriage is between one man and one woman.Trolls get a life, I HATE OUR BIASED LIBERAL MEDIA.)
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To: manc

You are so very right about Shaw and Hitler. Sometimes I think we have progressed so far as humans and then I realize that many who believe they have superior intellect have not progressed at all. They still think they “know it all.” I’m sure most of us have run into a number of people who, “know it all.”


9 posted on 01/18/2012 4:50:54 PM PST by mia
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To: surroundedbyblue

What could ANYONE say to this? I had to keep checking to see DID THIS REALLY HAPPEN IN AMERICA? Maybe the judge agree with Obama. She shouldn’t “be punished with a child”.


10 posted on 01/18/2012 4:53:05 PM PST by Donnafrflorida (Thru HIM all things are possible.)
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To: surroundedbyblue

What could ANYONE say to this? I had to keep checking to see DID THIS REALLY HAPPEN IN AMERICA? Maybe the judge agree with Obama. She shouldn’t “be punished with a child”.


11 posted on 01/18/2012 4:53:20 PM PST by Donnafrflorida (Thru HIM all things are possible.)
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To: Morgana

Good Lord! Is this China???!!! Now THIS is really scary!


12 posted on 01/18/2012 4:56:31 PM PST by Saundra Duffy ( For victory & freedom!!!)
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To: Donnafrflorida

Sure did. This attitude has been around a long time. This is what we are up against.


13 posted on 01/18/2012 4:56:56 PM PST by BenKenobi
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To: mia

I’ve met quite a few of them who think they’re so smart but when I question them they then look dumbfounded as it seems the loons on the left like to surround themselves with like minded others and tell each other how smart they are.

ALL of them shout compassion etc and yet they don’t follow what they shout.


14 posted on 01/18/2012 5:04:06 PM PST by manc (Marriage is between one man and one woman.Trolls get a life, I HATE OUR BIASED LIBERAL MEDIA.)
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To: BenKenobi

They are doing all of this because they have infiltrated the MSM.
They know now that the MSM covers for them and the majority of people have no clue as to what is really happening and how much hate the left has.


15 posted on 01/18/2012 5:06:02 PM PST by manc (Marriage is between one man and one woman.Trolls get a life, I HATE OUR BIASED LIBERAL MEDIA.)
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To: Morgana

If Planned non-Parenthood and their ilk had their way, this is what they would be doing to us. Because, of course, conservatives are “delusional”.


16 posted on 01/18/2012 5:07:48 PM PST by Campion ("It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins." -- Franklin)
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To: Morgana

Killing babies and sterilizing women in Massachusetts?

Why does this not surprise me from the F’in state that created....

Mittens “Peacetime” Romney


17 posted on 01/18/2012 5:11:29 PM PST by Sapwolf (Talkers are usually more articulate than doers, since talk is their specialty. -Sowell)
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To: surroundedbyblue
Article on the Boston Herald web site.

Her parents were partitioning a court to be her guardian so they could ok the surgery.

Special, eh?


18 posted on 01/18/2012 5:12:41 PM PST by ex91B10 (We've tried the Soap Box,the Ballot Box and the Jury Box; one box left.)
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To: Donnafrflorida

“....DID THIS REALLY HAPPEN IN AMERICA?”

.
You ain’t seen nothing yet.

In a nation that elected someone like Hussein and could possibly re-elect him, anything against its constitutional principles can be expected.


19 posted on 01/18/2012 5:23:17 PM PST by 353FMG
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To: Saundra Duffy

Look up Buck v. Bell - In 1927 the high court ordered a forced sterilization. This is what happens when the wicked rule and court is not bound by the text of the Constitution.


20 posted on 01/18/2012 5:27:52 PM PST by DaveyB (Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. -John Adams)
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