Abortion remorse lawsuit rejected by Ill. appeals court

WASHINGTON — An Illinois appeals court has ruled a Planned Parenthood clinic was not obligated to tell a woman who later regretted her abortion that the procedure would take the life of a human being. The woman, identified in the case as Mary Doe, had an abortion in 2004 at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Chicago. She later filed suit against the clinic, alleging wrongful death of her unborn child, intentional infliction of emotional distress and malpractice, according to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.

Doe asked a Planned Parenthood counselor before the procedure if the abortion would end the life of a human being, and the clinic staff member said it would not. She said she would not have gone through with the abortion had the clinic told her the procedure would end a human being’s life, according to the news report.

The First District Appellate Court affirmed Aug. 22 a lower court decision dismissing the suit.

“No court, regardless of where it sits, has found a common law duty requiring doctors to tell their pregnant patients that aborting an embryo, or fetus, is the killing of an existing human being,” Justice Rodolfo Garcia wrote in the court’s opinion, the Daily Law Bulletin reported.

“The negative answer from the Planned Parenthood counselor to the plaintiff’s question of whether ‘there was already a human being in existence’ during the plaintiff’s intake evaluation simply reflects the opinion of Planned Parenthood on when life begins,” Garcia wrote.