NM abortion clinic tries to escape jury trial
Albuquerque is home to abortion clinic Southwestern Women’s Options, which does abortions through all nine months of pregnancy. It also has a connection to the University of New Mexico, allowing medical interns to do abortions at the clinic and also collecting aborted baby body parts for research at the university.
However, in order to harvest fetal remains for research, the clinic is supposed to have women sign a six-point consent form sign to comply with state law. The clinic hasn’t been doing that according to Elisa Martinez of New Mexico Alliance for Life.
“The reason why these abortion clinics are not disclosing the information regarding research is the very reason the [baby bodies] are being sought after – and that is the humanity of the baby,” she says. “They seek to hide and deceive women about the humanity of their baby but at the back door they’re harvesting the body parts.”
The Alliance investigated the clinic and found state law was being violated.
Martinez says their research also disclosed upsetting news for a woman named Jessica Duran, who had been pressured into an abortion at the clinic.
Duran, who had an abortion in 2012, sued Southwestern late last year.
“In a split second, Duran made a decision to go through with the abortion without any support, like many women do,” Martinez explains. “And regretfully later, when our investigation broke, she found out and has come to believe her infant’s body was harvested and used for research without her consent.”
Duran’s unborn daughter was estimated to be about 13 weeks old.
On October 10, New Mexico District Judge Clay Campbell rejected a motion from the abortion clinic and abortionist Curtis Boyd to dismiss Duran’s suit.
Campbell ruled, in fact, that Duran’s case has sufficient merit to go to trial before a jury.
Martinez and New Mexico Alliance for Life are hopeful that this means the Southwestern Women’s Options clinic disregard for state law will be publicly exposed.
Leave a Reply