Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Judge Forces Abortion on Mentally Ill Woman
An interesting abortion story is emerging in Boston about a probate court judge who forced an abortion on a mentally ill woman. As part of his orders, the judge allowed her legal guardians (parents) to coerce or even lie to the woman to get her to the hospital and sedated. His orders then permitted a forced abortion and sterilization - both of which she clearly did not want. Today's Boston Herald provides a nice overview of the story. Not your typical abortion story but it raises some really interesting issues.
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3 comments:
Oh my gosh!
I am asking this in all earnestness and sincerity: are there grounds to charge this judge with conspiracy to commit murder? If the Indiana woman who attempted suicide while pregnant was charged with murder, why not this judge?
This is really unfathomable. Thanks for sharing this, Scoob!
Besides this article, interesting, this story has not resonated at all locally. There is a even more interesting twist to this story. The forced abortion was part of court order. The forced sterilization was an afterthought put in by the Judge - it was NOT even requested as part of the original court proceedings by the woman's family. As reported, no one even knew that was part of the court order except the judge. This judge retired right before this story broke. There is no indication either way if she was motivated to retire based on this case.
I suspect the forced abortion will not/cannot result in murder charges. The family was given custody of her - I can only assume part of that process was that she did not have the capacity to make decisions for herself. As such, I assume they had the legal authority to make this and other medical decisions for her. Can you imagine, the Judge’s orders indicating they can lie to her to get her to the hospital so the procedures can be done? As yet another twist, my recollection of the story is that her mental health problems were made worse because she stopped taking psychotropic drugs when she found out she was pregnant. As her symptoms got worse, her family was given custody. But her withdrawal from the medication apparently was to protect the baby, which she clearly wanted before she started down this path. Simply amazing case. Even more amazing, I have heard nothing about this case in the local media since I posted this!
All I'm thinking is about the great negative effect this will pose onto the poor woman. I to have not heard one word of this in the media. They're probably too busy following and reporting on celebrity whereabouts.
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