A pregnant woman in Kentucky who filed a lawsuit demanding the right to an abortion has learned her embryo no longer has cardiac activity, her attorneys said Tuesday.
The plaintiff’s attorneys signaled their intent to continue the challenge to Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban, but did not immediately comment on what effect the development would have on the lawsuit.
The complaint was filed last week in a state court in Louisville. The plaintiff, identified only as Jane Doe, was seeking class-action status to include other Kentuckians who are or will become pregnant and want to have an abortion. The suit filed last week said she was about eight weeks pregnant.
The flurry of individual women petitioning a court for permission for an abortion is the latest development since Roe v. Wade was overturned last year. The Kentucky case is similar to a legal battle taking place in Texas, where Kate Cox, a pregnant woman with a fatal condition, launched an unprecedented challenge against one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the U.S.
It is ghoulish that this deeply personal information has to be made public just for this woman to get medical care that she always should have been able to get.
Yes.
“Sorry ma’am, that baby is gonna have to calcify in your uterus, we’re pro life here.”
Maybe worth being a little more blunt in this case:
“Sorry ma’am, that corpse is going to have to calcify in your uterus, we’re pro life here.”
Not fair! It could go septic and kill her instead!
Hey! Calcium is people, too!
GOP: We can’t get universal healthcare because that’s putting government in control of your medical conditions.
Also GOP: Let’s pass a law that makes “Kentucky woman seeking court approval for abortion learned her embryo no longer has cardiac activity” a real headline.
Pro-Life doesn’t apply when the fetus is already dead. This is pro-basic medical treatment vs. anti.
They were never pro-life.
They are anti basic treatment.
Its just anti-women, always had been.
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I say we start transplanting these fetuses into the people that don’t want the women to get care. Let them deal with it. Just open them up, drop it in and close it up and send them on their way.
Goddamn these southern state politicians are truly vile.
This is a fucking insane dystopian nightmare. Fuck the GOP, fuck the SCotUS, fuck the US in general at this point. Fuck everything.
is it still an abortion if the fetus died?
This is the exact problem with these bans. The medical procedure in question (dilation and curretage) can be and is used in cases with a fetus in any condition. The same procedure can be used for an elective abortion, a medically necessary abortion, or even to complete a miscarriage that is already underway.
The “abortion” procedure would have saved Savita Halapanavar’s life. I personally know three women who were in similar circumstances, losing a lot of blood during miscarriages that weren’t completing on their own.
You can’t ban medical procedures that have valid use cases. These things are most properly regulated by medical professionals themselves.
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pompous word salad
LOL
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When laws are passed they should be made with consideration for the majority, not the exception. Personally, I don’t know any woman who has had 15 abortions, but I do personally know women, more than I can count on my hand, who really wanted babies, but had medical D&Cs out of necessity, otherwise their health and their ability to have children in the future would be gravely impacted.
Unfortunately when you make laws using that mentality of preventing that one woman from having immoral abortions, it fucks up healthcare for every women in the country, whether they want to have children, willingly or not.
You say “medical professionals” should not regulate this matter but you and every politician are even less so qualified. Every medical case is different, and unless you are in the room with the doctor and the patient, listening to all the patient’s status details and history, no one else really has the qualifications.
Ultimately, if you really want to reduce the rate at which people have abortions, it’s been statistically proven that (1) having access to birth control, (2) sex education (3) investing in education in general can greatly reduce abortion rates. (One of many sources)
Because surprise! No woman actually wants to have 15 abortions. In cities and neighborhoods where abortions are common, women are often undereducated, and lack the resources/situational decision making skills that would be better for their health and life long term.
But that’s never the angle that media likes to frame it, because it’s not gut wrenching or eye catching as “we must stop this woman from aborting babies 15 times!”
I really hope that you are able to change that mindset and in the future vote in a way that benefits all women.
Medical science is clear on when a fetus is viable and when higher brain function occurs. You speak as if you believe the myth that “life” begins at conception, which is not congruent with medical science. Elective abortions should be safe, legal, and RARE.
Did you know that the rates of abortion are increasing now that these bans have gone into affect? Bans do not work. Sex education, birth control, these are the things proven time and again to reduce abortion rates.
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Abortion is the name of the medical procedure. So removing a dead fetus is still an abortion.
If you have to have these laws they should specifically target elective abortions. Not the medical procedure in general.
Just to be 100% clear I don’t support abortion bans in any form. Just pointing out blanket banning a medical procedure is fucking outrageous.
If you have to have these laws they should specifically target elective abortions. Not the medical procedure in general.
I understand you are just playing devil’s advocate here, but even this is a bad idea. As we’ve seen in Texas, the law isn’t designed for nuance, it is designed to attack women. The Texas law was supposed to have exceptions for health and safety of the woman/fetus, and we saw how that played out. Having a law that specifically targeted elective abortions would have the same problem where the state would undoubtedly put the burden of proof on the woman. “Oh, your baby has no heartbeat? Fill out this form in triplicate, get your doctor to sign it, have it notarized, and your abortion will be approved in 38 - 40 weeks.”
The answer is “whichever answer results in the most suffering.”
We could have codified Roe, but preserving the filibuster was more important.
Yup, the filibuster that has been used almost exclusively by racists and bigots trying to deny any kind of positive change. Absolutely need to keep that shit around when we already have the presidential veto and two separate chambers holding up any kind of progress even before the opportunity to hold stuff up in the courts.
Democrats are openly happy to preserve the relic of Jim Crow that is the filibuster. Setting a timetable for another man’s freedom is their heritage. They call it incrementalism now.
Conservatives cannot mind their own business under any circumstances. How they still trick people into believing ‘conservatism’ is beyond me.
It’s classic cult programming.
She killed her baby! To JAIL with her! If only she had waited until it was born to kill it she would be FINE by my Pro Life standards!
The proper way to kill an infant in america is to feed it deregulated lead filled baby formula after its been born.
Any one ever hear of heartbeat laws?
If a woman has a heartbeat, we must oppress her.
-the GOP
But-but-but there could be a miracle and the baby’s heart could start beating again if she just prays enough and is devout enough! And so if that doesn’t happen then God obviously doesn’t like her and so she should suffer!
Seriously though, it never was about the children. It was about making sure women pay for being of Eve’s get.
I already donate to PP and the ACLU, but is there some kind of legal defense fund for women in this kind of position? Do those organizations have everything covered so it’s better to just increase donations to them?
I know there were a number of charities launching as well as independent activities helping women travel out of state for safe abortions, and I am just trying to get a sense of the best way we can put our money to use while we’re still working on reversing the political side of this.
If you were an ultrasound technician or an OB/GYN, and the embryo shows cardiac activity, you should definitely not record that the embryo doesn’t have cardiac activity so that the woman can choose to terminate. That would be illegal.
I predict they will say the case is moot to kick the can down the road.
