PROFESSIONUnborn child meets legal definition of "a person"The Arkansas high court makes the ruling in a wrongful death case against a physician.By Tanya Albert, AMNews staff. June 4, 2001. The Arkansas Supreme Court in May ruled that an unborn baby that died during childbirth can be considered a person in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the physicians involved with the labor. About 30 hours after doctors induced labor for Evangeline Aka in 1995, she and her unborn child died. Claiming the physicians unnecessarily induced his wife's labor, failed to perform a caesarian section and then failed to resuscitate his wife or the unborn baby boy, Aka's husband filed lawsuits on behalf of his wife and his unborn son. A lower court said the unborn baby was not considered a person. But Arkansas' high court said the wrongful death lawsuit could go ahead with the unborn baby boy considered a person, citing a 1999 state law that defines a person as a living fetus of 12 weeks or greater gestation. "Given this amended definition of 'person,' the legislature plainly affords protection to unborn viable fetuses, assuming injury or death occurred without the mother's consent to a lawful abortion or beyond 'actions deemed necessary to save' the mother's life," Chief Justice W. H. Arnold wrote for the majority. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Robert L. Brown said he agreed with the lower court ruling that fetuses are not considered persons in wrongful death cases and disagreed that the 1999 law should be applied retroactively to cover just one case.
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Copyright 2001 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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