Doctors in the state of New Jersey are under no obligation to tell their patients the truth about their unborn children, according to yesterday's unanimous ruling by the state Supreme Court. In the 5-0 decision, justices said the court, "will not place a duty on doctors when there is no consensus in the medical community or among the public" on when life begins. The suit was filed in response to a botched abortion suffered by a New Jersey woman at the hands of a physician who misled her about the personhood of her unborn child. According to her testimony, when Dr. Sheldon Turkish advised her to have an abortion, she asked whether the "baby was already there." Turkish allegedly replied, "Don't be stupid, it's only blood." Seven weeks after the abortion, the women went to the hospital for excessive bleeding. Contrary to what Turkish told her, the physicians discovered that "parts of the baby" were still inside her. She sued Turkish for failing to provide her with accurate medical information before she consented to the abortion.
In its final opinion, the court wrote, "On the profound issue of when life begins, this court cannot drive public policy in one particular direction by the engine of common law when the opposing side, which represent so many of our citizens are arrayed along a deep societal and philosophical divide."
Interestingly enough, this same court didn't seem to mind "[driving] public policy in one particular direction" during the state's marriage debate last fall. In Lewis v. Harris, the justices did more than drive public policy on marriage--they rewrote it! In true dictatorial fashion, the court ordered the state's legislators to abandon democracy and grant homosexual couples the same rights as married spouses.
One might ask where that same concern for the state's "deep societal and philosophical divide" was last October? Obviously, New Jersey's high court reserves its restraint for cases that aid the liberal cause. (Source: Family Research Council)
