Friday, August 13, 1999
Inmate can have abortion
BY BEN L. KAUFMAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A federal judge Thursday swept aside efforts by River City Correctional Center to prevent an inmate from getting an abortion.
“A woman's right to choose to terminate her pregnancy was decided more than 25 years ago,” said U.S. District Judge Susan J. Dlott.
“It is in the public's interest to uphold that right when it is being arbitrarily denied by prison officials absent medical or other legitimate concerns.”
She ordered center staff to take “Jane Doe” to a Cincinnati clinic of her choice for the abortion and follow-up appointments.
Visits should be consistent with normal security procedures for outside medical visits, Judge Dlott added.
The unnamed inmate is nine weeks pregnant. She began her 18-month sentence for a non-violent property crime on July 20.
John Barron, director of the minimum security jail in Camp Washington, refused to provide an abortion.
He also would not release her long enough to go to a private abortion provider at her own expense even though prisoners are taken off-site routinely for other medical treatments.
Tuesday, attorneys Alphonse Gerhardstein and Jennifer Branch filed her request for a temporary order restraining Mr. Barron from blocking access to an abortion.
At a Thursday hearing, Ms. Branch said delay or denial would violate Jane Doe's rights and “it is irreparable harm to a woman to be denied abortion services.”
For a quarter century, Ms. Branch said, adult women have had an unfettered right to abortion in the first trimester.
Carl J. Stich Jr., the assistant Hamilton County prosecutor defending Mr. Barron, said prisoners have “no such right” to what “appears to be an elective procedure.”
Mr. Stich confirmed that “the only way that she would be released is with a court order” or with the the sentencing judge's approval. Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman “has indicated that approval will not be given.”
Saying other interests are at stake, Mr. Stich asked Judge Dlott to postpone any decision until he could present a fuller defense on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Three hours later, Judge Dlott refused his request and struck down the ban. She said anything less than the sought-after abortion would inflict “immediate and irreparable harm” on the inmate.
In their prehearing argument, Ms. Branch and Mr. Gerhardstein said abortion is a legal medical procedure that cannot be denied to women by “state actors” such as prisons.
River City “is acting with deliberate indifference to the serious medical needs of the plaintiff and in violation of the fundamental constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy,” they argued.
In addition, River City's policy on abortion for inmates differs from state prison policy, which allows inmates to get abortions.
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