[Crimson Dynamo]

The decision, described as a first, hinges on the state’s ‘personhood’ law recognising legal rights of the unborn.

An Alabama judge has recognized the legal rights of an aborted fetus,
allowing a man whose girlfriend ended her pregnancy at six weeks to sue
the manufacturer of the pill she used and the clinic that gave it to her.

The decree, issued by Madison County Probate Judge Frank Barger, explicitly
states “Baby Roe” is a person and allows plaintiff Ryan Magers to name the
fetus as a co-plaintiff in the suit for “wrongful death.” Magers said in court
filings that when his then-girlfriend discovered she was pregnant in early 2017,
he “repeatedly pleaded” with her to carry the pregnancy to term and give birth,
but she wanted to have an abortion.

Abortion rights groups expressed alarm, saying the Alabama judge’s decision last
month sets a dangerous precedent at a time when the idea of “fetal rights” — which
recognize embryos and fetuses as separate from the women who carry them — is gaining
currency in state legislatures, courts and law enforcement agencies. In one New Jersey case,
a mother lost custody of her child when she had a vaginal birth instead of the C-section her
doctors insisted was necessary. In others, pregnant women who drank or took drugs — both illegal
and prescribed — and then had miscarriages were accused of child abuse. And dozens of states have
passed fetal homicide laws that treat the unborn as a separate entity from the woman carrying them.

Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, tweeted Tuesday that the Alabama lawsuit is
a “very scary case.” It asserts that a woman’s rights are “third in line,” after the rights of a
man who impregnates her and the fetus she aborts, she said.

“It has the potential to be used in other states, and it’s part of abortion opponents being
emboldened … and conservatives turning over every rock to see how they can ban abortion,”
said Elizabeth Nash, who studies state legislation at the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights.


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