Couple Can Sue for Right to Abort

Religion Today | Published: Jul 09, 2012

Couple Can Sue for Right to Abort

A Montana judge has ruled that a couple who would have aborted their unborn daughter had they known she had cystic fibrosis can sue their healthcare providers, Baptist Press reports. District court judge Mike Salvagni in Bozeman said a suit by Joe and Kerrie Evans can go to court. The Evanses sued Livingston HealthCare and medical professionals for failing to offer a test to see if they carried the recessive gene for cystic fibrosis and for failing to order a test during 38-year-old Kerrie Evans' first trimester of pregnancy though she had expressed concerns about her baby having the disease, according to the Great Falls Tribune. The healthcare providers urged Salvagni to dismiss the suit, describing it as a "wrongful birth" lawsuit. The Evanses are requesting damages "for a missed opportunity to abort their daughter," said Julie Lichte, a lawyer for the defendants. Permitting the suit to go to court "will ask a jury to award them damages for the very existence of their daughter," she said. Salvagni, who rejected the use of the term "wrongful birth," said dismissing the case would "immunize from liability those in the medical field providing guidance to persons who would choose to exercise their constitutional right to abort their fetuses, which, if born, would suffer from genetic [or other] defects."

Couple Can Sue for Right to Abort