The Law Is An Ass

MorningJournal.com 03/03/06
Judge Tygh M. Tone, using the U.S. Supreme Court's abortion rights case Roe v. Wade for case law, ruled in favor of the hospital, now known as Firelands Regional Medical Center, on four major claims. The 1997 class action lawsuit was brought on behalf of at least two women who had miscarriages or stillbirths at the hospital.

In addressing the women's allegations against the hospital, Tone quoted case law, including Roe v. Wade, which offered a definition of ''person'' and set precedent that legal rights of a ''person'' have ''generally been contingent upon live birth.''

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Ohio law and Roe v. Wade ''leads this court to believe that fetal tissue cannot be mishandled in the same regard as a body, and the alleged mishandling of fetal tissue would not constitute the common law tort of mishandling a body,'' the ruling said. ''Fetal tissue is not a 'body,' and this court refuses to extend the definition of a 'body' or 'person' to include the term 'fetal tissue.'''

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The hospital stated it ''would take care of the tissue, and no matter if it was stored or grinded, the tissue was removed from the care of the plaintiffs and taken care of,'' Tone wrote. Firelands hospital also had no duty to disclose how it would dispose of the tissue, the ruling said.

The hospital's protocol for tissue disposal required the fetal tissue to be disposed of in a ''tissue grinder.'' The grinder ''appears to operate similar to a garbage disposal, where the tissue is placed into the device, grinded up, and then the tissue is eventually emptied into the sanitary sewer system,'' the ruling said.

The women who initiated the suit did so because their babies were kept in jars on a shelf before "disposal" because an employee had qualms about running them through the "grinder".
A photo of Judge Tygh Tone (D) can be seen at the Ohio Democratic Party website.