Woman Sues Clinic Because Botched Abortion Leaves Baby Injured

A woman in Alabama, who has been identified in the media only by her initials L.K.D.H., filed suit against Planned Parenthood of Alabama because she says her daughter—the result of an unsuccessful abortion—was born with a hole in her heart and an inverted tube leading from her lungs to her heart, "causing her body not to be able to receive enough oxygen." The suit was initially dismissed by a lower court, but upon appeal the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals has ruled that the woman can sue on behalf of herself and her child.

The woman went to Planned Parenthood in Birmingham to have an abortion, but the procedure was unsuccessful. She initially blamed the clinic only for her daughter being born, but when it became clear that the child had suffered health problems during the abortion, she decided to sue the clinic because of the botched abortion. Circuit Judge Robert Vance Jr. ruled in favor of the abortion clinic in the first hearing, and the appeals court agreed with him that the mother couldn’t sue on her own behalf. However, the judges said she can sue on behalf of her child, so that case is now proceeding.

In the ruling, Judge Glenn Murdock wrote, "Neither the United States Supreme Court nor the Supreme Court of Alabama has ever ruled that a medical provider, or for that matter a mother, can engage, with some blanket of constitutional protection, in negligent or reckless conduct that deforms or injures a child so long as the deformity or injury is inflicted on the child before it leaves the womb." He continued by saying that if abortion clinics were allowed to operate "as carelessly or recklessly as they wish without bearing any responsibility" would be "a troubling development in our law."

Murdock also said that both state and federal Supreme Courts have not said that abortion clinics can "with some blanket of constitutional protection, in negligent or reckless conduct that deforms or injures a child so long as the deformity or injury is inflicted on the child before it leaves the womb." Murdock is running for the Alabama Supreme Court in the Republican primary.

Eric Johnston, an attorney who has helped lawmakers write several anti-abortion bills considered by the state, said that the ruling raises a serious question that might have broad implications because other Alabama court cases have ruled that a woman can’t sue over a successful abortion, and a child born healthy after an unsuccessful abortion can’t legally sue a clinic because of "wrongful birth." Johnston says that this ruling is significant because it may mean that a health care provider can be held responsible for injuries caused to a child in the womb. "The fact it was during an abortion doesn’t change that," Johnston said.