There is some good news for reproductive-rights supporters in the Supreme Court's choices on which cases to hear this session. The Court has passed on an odd New Jersey case in which a woman sued her doctor for not informing her that her abortion would terminate "a complete, separate, unique and irreplaceable human being." The woman, Rosa Acuna, is a mother of two. According to her doctor, Sheldon Turkish, Acuna's pregnancy threatened irrevocable kidney damage. But the case was out of the ordinary for several reasons: The abortion resulted in scarring and a trip to the emergency room for Acuna, and Turkish supposedly told Acuna, "Don’t be stupid, it’s only blood.” Not ideal. But the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled doctors have no obligation to stick to a set script when discussing abortion.
The second case turned away by the Court involves the rights of prisoners to access abortion and truly illustrates the "forced pregnancy" ideology of the most extreme anti-choicers. The Missouri Department of Corrections instituted a policy barring the use of tax dollars to transport prisoners for abortions. A female prisoner denied abortion for 17 weeks sued, and now the Supreme Court has declined to reconsider the ruling in her favor.
The Court also declined to hear two more abortion cases, one dealing with anti-choicers publishing personal information about abortion providers, and the other with "choose life" license plates. Read about them all at the Daily Women's Health Policy Report.
--Dana Goldstein
