Alabama Judge Dismisses Case Granting 'Personhood Status' to a Fetus

By Emily Alford  |  August 31, 2019 | 7:00pm
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Alabama Judge Dismisses Case Granting 'Personhood Status' to a Fetus
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An Alabama judge has dismissed a lawsuit in which a probate judge previously granted personhood status to a fetus aborted two years ago.

In March 2019, an Alabama probate judge granted “personhood status” to a fetus after a nineteen-year-old man, Ryan Magers, sued an Alabama abortion clinic over a medication abortion his sexual partner had in 2017. In the case the fetus was named “Baby Roe,” and a male judge granted the aborted clump of cells the same rights as the human being that once housed it. Luckily, a different judge dismissed the case on August 30, which might make it a shade more difficult for Alabama teenagers to take it one step further in future and figure out a way to sue me, personally, for poisoning all my eggs with chemo when I had breast cancer instead of gestating a litter.

“The impact of that would be chaos,” Madison County Circuit Court Judge Chris Comer, said of the case.

Back in March, Magers said that instead of finding a partner who wanted to bear his children, he would devote his life to ensuring pregnant people he has never met must take a vote before enduring the agonizing and potentially life-threatening process of giving birth: “Even though there’s nothing I can do for the situation I was in, there is something I can do for the future situations for other people.”

And though men in nine states and counting have made great strides in stripping bodily autonomy from women, just this week the BBC asked whether denying those choices is quite enough, publishing an article centering the narrative on “The Men Who Want Greater Say in Abortions.”

While Adam did not get a say this time, I suspect this dismissal will not deter future Adams from trying it.

 
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