Court Overturns Forced Abortion, Sterilization Ruling

Earlier this month a judge ordered a mentally unstable woman to be “coaxed, bribed, or even enticed … by ruse” into an abortion and a sterilization procedure.

The woman who said she is a Catholic didn’t want an abortion but the judge says he knew better. He said if she weren’t mentally unstable, she would clearly opt to abort her child and get herself sterilized.

An appeals court thankfully overturned this decision.

The Boston Globe reports:

The Massachusetts Appeals Court today reversed a probate judge’s decision to order a schizophrenic woman to undergo an abortion and to then be sterilized, saying the woman had consistently expressed her opposition to the practice as a Catholic.

In October, the state Department of Mental Health filed a petition to have the woman’s parents named as guardians for the woman, who is only known as “Mary Moe,’’ so they could give consent for an abortion, according to the court.

Norfolk Probate and Family Court Judge Christina Harms, declared that the 32-year-old woman was not competent to make a decision about an abortion, citing “substantial delusional beliefs,” and concluded she would choose to abort her pregnancy if she were competent.

Earlier this month, Harms ordered that the woman’s parents be appointed as coguardians and that Moe could be “coaxed, bribed, or even enticed … by ruse” into a hospital where she would be sedated and an abortion would then be performed, the ruling stated.

The judge also ordered the facility that performed the abortion to sterilize the woman “to avoid this painful situation from recurring in the future.”

The Appeal Court’s decision, released today, reversed the sterilization order in unusually strong terms.

“No party requested this measure, none of the attendant procedural requirements has been met, and the judge appears to have simply produced the requirement out of thin air,” wrote Appeals Court Judge Andrew Grainger.

In today’s Moe ruling, the court also concluded that Harms improperly decided the matter of Moe’s competence, and noted that a court-appointed guardian had determined Moe would decide against an abortion if competent.

According to the court, the woman showed up at a hospital emergency room last Oct. 15 where it was discovered that she was pregnant – and doctors concluded that Moe would be more harmed than the fetus if she was taken off medication used for the treatment of her mental illness.

Harms said the woman would “not choose to be delusional” if competent, and would choose to have an abortion “in order to benefit from medication that otherwise could not be administered due to its effect on the fetus.”

It turns out that the woman in question had previously had an abortion so maybe she understands the horror of abortion. And where the heck were all the women’s lib folks on this? I mean, think about this, a MAN was making a choice that only a woman should be allowed to make!!! Isn’t that 21st century heresy? Isn’t it only a woman’s decision? But oddly, they didn’t seem to mind a man making the choice for a woman because it had a happy ending -abortion.

This just shows you that people who say they’re all about women’s rights are actually just for abortion. Forced or not.