Madison County probate court Judge Frank Barger allowed an Alabama man to name his aborted child as a co-plaintiff in his lawsuit against an abortion facility. This is the first time in the United States that an aborted baby has been recognized to have legal rights.
In Baby Roe vs. Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives, the 19-year-old father of the baby is suing an abortion facility for providing an abortion to a woman he says was pregnant with his child. Ryan Magers claims his girlfriend got a medicated abortion at the Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives in Huntsville in February 2017 when she was six weeks pregnant even though he urged her not to terminate the pregnancy. Magers is seeking a jury trial and the probate judge allowed him to represent the unborn child’s estate. The abortion facility has until April 1 to respond to the lawsuit.
Last October, in a fetal-homicide case, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that an unborn baby is a legal person under the law. In Jessie Phillips v. State of Alabama, the Alabama Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the death penalty sentence for Jessie Phillips, a man convicted of capital murder for killing his wife and their unborn child, Baby Doe. Phillips had argued that he should not get the death penalty for killing his unborn child because he said the child was not a “person” under Alabama law. The Court rejected Phillips’ arguments and held that, under Alabama law, Baby Doe was a full “person” and that “the value of the life of an unborn child is no less than the value of the lives of other persons.”
In his opinion, Chief Justice Tom Parker urged the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Roe v. Wade abortion decision as it is a “constitutional aberration” that hinders ‘the states’ ability to protect the God-given respect and dignity of unborn human life.”
“We applaud Judge Barger for recognizing that unborn babies have the same legal rights as people outside the womb,” said Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver. “The Alabama Supreme Court and Chief Justice Tom Parker have set a precedent that the value of the life of an unborn child is no less than the value of the lives of other persons,” said Staver.
Liberty Counsel represented Justice Parker when an Alabama federal district court entered a permanent injunction in his favor and against the Judicial Inquiry Commission barring the use of judicial ethics canons to censor judges’ public comments.
