mississippi_court_90803

Posted: 9/5/03

Mississippi court rules fetus
is a person to be protected

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

JACKSON, Miss. (ABP)–Mississippi's highest court has ruled that a fetus is a “person” worthy of some legal protections under state law.

In a ruling one of the court's justices criticized as an attack on abortion rights, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled Aug. 21 that a Bolivar County, Miss., woman had the right to pursue a wrongful-death lawsuit on behalf of her unborn child. The fetus was 19 weeks old at the time the woman miscarried.

The 6-2 ruling means that, under Mississippi's wrongful-death statutes, fetuses can be included under the definition of “person.”

Tracy Tucker sued a car-repossession company, a credit union and a Cleveland, Miss., doctor and hospital after suffering a miscarriage in 1997. She alleged that emotional distress brought about by the repossession of her automobile and misdiagnosis by medical professionals led to the miscarriage. The ruling allows her to proceed with her lawsuit.

Under Mississippi law, women already had the right to sue for the wrongful death of babies born prematurely or late-term fetuses that otherwise would have been expected to live had they been born. However, the new ruling expands that right to mothers with unborn children that have not reached the so-called stage of “viability,” or ability to live outside the womb.

Justice Chuck McRae, in a dissenting opinion, said the act was an assault on the right to abortion established by the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision.

Sondra Goldschein, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, echoed McRae's concerns. According to the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, she said, “Anytime the fetus is recognizable as a person, it chips away at the foundation of Roe.”

But Justice Jim Smith, writing the majority opinion, said the ruling would not affect the rights of doctors to perform abortions under Mississippi law. “Tucker's interest is to protect and preserve the life of her unborn child, not in the exercise of her right to terminate that life which has been declared constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court,” he wrote.