New Jersey High Court Rejects Informed Consent
Posted September 17, 2007

Always err on the side of life. There was a time when this principle was viewed not only as a common consensus but also as a moral duty.

This week, however, New Jersey brazenly claimed that such a time is past, thousands of innocent lives notwithstanding.

On Wednesday, the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a 5-0 decision, ruling that doctors are not required to inform patients considering abortions that the embryo is “an existing living human being.”

The case stemmed from a lawsuit brought by New Jersey resident Rosa Acuna against abortion provider Sheldon Turkish. In 1998, Acuna underwent an abortion at 6-8 weeks after Dr. Turkish, answered her question of whether “it was the baby in there” with “it’s only blood.” Dr. Turkish botched the abortion, and several weeks later Acuna found herself in the hospital after suffering from bleeding. According to Acuna, it wasn’t until a nurse informed her that “the doctor had left parts of the baby inside,” that Acuna understood that she had been carrying “a baby and not just blood.”

Although a three-judge appeals panel sided with Acuna, the Supreme Court overturned the panel’s ruling. Giving the Court’s decision, Justice Barry T. Albin wrote:

On the profound issue of when life begins, this court cannot drive public policy in one particular direction by the engine of the common law when the opposing sides, which represent so many of our citizens, are arrayed along a deep societal and philosophical divide.

Under the thin guise of legal considerations, the Court determined that it could not “compel” a physician “who may have a different scientific, moral or philosophical viewpoint on the issue of when life beings” to provide complete information to expectant mothers regarding the life of their unborn babies.

For supposed guardians of the legal trust, the New Jersey Supreme Court has fallen far. In one fell swoop, the Court ignored not only scientific evidence in support of life – consider that a human heartbeat is detectable as early as 5-1/2 weeks, and by 6-8 weeks, facial features and limbs are apparent – but also New Jersey legal precedent in which Judge Michael Noonan ruled in the 1991 case of State of New Jersey v. Alexander Loce, et als., that “…based upon the undisputed medical testimony by arguably the foremost authority in genetics in the world, I found that human life begins as [sic] conception; and that Roe vs. Wade permits a legal execution of that human being.”

While Justice Albin claims that the Court “cannot drive public policy,” this is precisely what it is doing – driving the policy of pro-abortion activists who seek to keep vital healthcare information from mothers considering abortion.

The Court may have won the praise of the pro-abortion lobby this week, but that praise is mingled with the blood of thousands of babies who continue to be slaughtered each year on the altar of a political agenda. At the very least, the Court could have considered the issue as a major surgical procedure in which information regarding the upcoming surgery should be given to the patient. But don’t hold your breath. New Jersey’s Supreme Court is known as one of the most liberal in the nation. This is just one more decision that underscores that prevailing belief.

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