Clinic owner denounces suit for aborted fetus

A wrongful death lawsuit filed against an Alabama women’s clinic on behalf of an aborted fetus is “preposterous,” the clinic’s owner said Thursday.

The suit was filed against the Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives after a Madison County judge approved a landmark request to establish an “estate” for an aborted fetus – and to allow the woman’s ex-boyfriend, Ryan Magers, to represent the estate.

“To my knowledge that has never been done in the United States,” Magers’ lawyer, Brent Helms, said of the judge’s decision. “The judge has said that Baby Roe is a person. Part of what we hoped to establish is personhood for aborted children in Alabama.”

The ruling came months after 59 percent of state voters approved a “personhood law,” or Amendment 2. The laws ensures constitutional rights to “the unborn child in all manners and measures lawful and appropriate.”

The amendment was designed to ensure that abortion would be banned in the state should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling in 1973 that established a woman’s legal right to an abortion. Helms, however, said his request to establish an estate for the aborted fetus relied on case law and made no mention of the new law.

Defendants included unnamed people who work at the clinic and the as-yet-unknown drugmaker that manufactured and distributed the pill “designed to kill unborn children,” the suit says.

Clinic owner Dalton Johnson said his lawyers were reviewing the court documents before determining how to proceed. He said he also believed that such a lawsuit was a first.

“They are throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks to stop access for women in Alabama,” Johnson said. “Having the boyfriend come out and sue the clinic is preposterous.”

The case has drawn the ire of some abortion rights supporters. Ilyse Hogue, president of the national abortions rights group NARAL, called the case “very scary” and said it puts a woman’s rights third in line.