An Alabama man is suing an abortion clinic on behalf of the fetus his ex-girlfriend aborted without his consent. Ryan Magers filed a lawsuit Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives in Madison Country, local CBS affiliate WHNT News 19 reported, claiming that his ex took a pill to end her pregnancy in February 2017 despite the fact that he repeatedly begged her to keep the baby.
- Both Magers and his ex-girlfriend were teenagers when the pregnancy happened. According to court filings, when he found out she was pregnant, he pleaded with her to keep the child. However, she eventually sought an abortion and ended the pregnancy.
- The lawsuit is on behalf of the aborted fetus. The suit refers to the embryo, which was roughly six weeks along at the time of the abortion, as “Baby Roe.” Magers appointed himself as the representative of the embryo’s estate and is attempting to claim wrongful death.
- Yes, this is actually something that will be heard in court. Thanks to an amendment passed in 2018 in the state of Alabama, a fetus has the same rights as someone who has actually been born. Never mind that at six weeks, the clump of cells in question wasn’t even a fetus yet and certainly would not have been able to sustain itself outside of the womb. In fact, it may not even have made it past the first trimester. Nevertheless, this is apparently a thing.
- Clearly there is no crime here. A lawyer for the Women’s Center, Sara Turner, dismissed the legitimacy of the filing and asked the judge to dismiss the case, the Montgomery Advertiser reports. “The bottom line here is that this is a simple case. They have sued for the wrongful death of an embryo and at the time that that happened abortion was legal in Alabama and still is,” Turner said.
- Magers’ attorney, Brent Helms, is looking to make history. “For the first time in the history of America the aborted child has been able to move forward with this case,” Helms said. “The state of Alabama recognized that Baby Roe is a person.”
