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Important First-Step
Victory in Case Against Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio
Part One of Four By Dave Andrusko Editor's note. Good evening and thanks for taking time out of your busy day to read TN&V and National Right to Life News Today. Part Two are in the important analysis written by NRLC Executive Director David N. O'Steen at the NRLC State Legislative Strategy Conference. Part Three is a critical look at still another attempt to multiply the use of RU-486. Part Four discusses additional pro-life legislative initiative. Over at National Right to Life News Today (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org), we gently reject notions for disengagement in the political process. Dr. David Prentice reminds us that it is states that fund the majority of human embryonic stem cell research. We conclude with an indignant response to the release after three months of an abortionist convicted of manslaughter. Please send your comments on Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha. The wheels of justice may grind slowly, but in the case of a 14-old girl who received an abortion in 2004 at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Cincinnati, they are moving forward hopefully to the right conclusion. The parents of the girl, identified only as "Jane Roe," first brought the suit in 2005, claiming that "the clinic broke the law by failing to get parental consent for their daughter's abortion, not reporting suspected child abuse to the authorities and not informing the girl of risks and alternatives," according to the Associated Press. On Tuesday Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Jody Luebbers ruled that a Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio abortionist ignored the state's informed consent law requiring that the practitioner meet with the girl 24 hours in advance of the abortion to explain the risks and alternatives. Left for another day (February 7, to be exact, when the case goes to trial) is the separate issue of the parents claim that Planned Parenthood violated Ohio law by not contacting the girls' parents before the abortion. The case has created a storm of controversy, both because there was an adult involved (who was subsequently convicted of sexual battery) and because the parents claimed in their suit that the abortion clinic's handling of their daughter's case was part of a "pattern or practice" of failing to meet its legal obligation to report abuse of minors who got abortions there," according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Impregnated by her 22-year-old soccer coach, the then-14-year-old girl had an abortion in March 2004. The relationship with her adult soccer coach went on for some time, "something the suit suggests led to her continued sexual abuse," the Enquirer reported. "John Haller, who began having sex with the girl when she was 13, later was convicted of sexual battery and served three years in prison, completing his prison sentence in the fall of 2007." At the trial, the attorney for Planned Parenthood attempted to circumvent the requirement by arguing that at the time of the abortion, the law requiring the "informed consent" meeting was the subject of a federal court injunction. Judge Luebbers would have none of that. Her Tuesday order "clearly noted the Ohio law at the time – and not that federal injunction – applied in this case," the Enquirer reported. The parents' attorney, Brian Hurley, told the court, "We believe as a result of Planned Parenthood's action, she's been significantly harmed psychologically and emotionally," Hurley said of the teen. "We believe it [the monetary damages] will be a significant number." There is no dispute that the abortion clinic did not obtain the parents' written consent. Instead they relied on a cell phone number the girl gave them which in fact belonged not to her parents but to John Haller, who posed as her father. |