Before Terri: Nancy Klein, Coma, Choice and the Religious Right

[mondo joe]

Ecerpted from http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/27/nyregion/27folo.html?ex=1112418000&en=e32e44fe14eec03e&ei=5070

In December 1988, Nancy Klein was a 32-year-old resident of Upper Brookville on Long Island, and was 10 weeks pregnant, when she was in an automobile accident that left her in a coma. Six weeks later, with no sign that she would emerge from it, her husband, Martin - saying doctors had told him that ending the pregnancy would improve her chances of recovering - asked a state court to appoint him as her guardian so he could authorize an abortion.

But abortion opponents who were strangers to the family sought to block the procedure, with one of them asking the court to name him as Ms. Klein's guardian and another seeking to be appointed the guardian for the fetus. In two weeks of court clashes, the abortion foes' petitions were rejected by three state courts and two United States Supreme Court justices, and the pregnancy was ended at 18 weeks.

Ms. Klein .. emerged from the coma several weeks later. Doctors would not say the abortion had definitely been the reason, though they said it had made it safer to give her medications. With severe brain damage, she spent two years in rehabilitation hospitals, trying to regain basic skills like walking and talking, and then moved in with her parents in Florida.

[HockeyMom]

1. They will NOT "kill' a fetus

even to save the woman's life, even if there is no hope for the fetus even making it to term. I can attest to that from personal experience. Too bad the majority of Americans don't realize this.

[mondo joe]

2. This whole story does, IMO, foreshadow the Schiavo case

A medical matter, a personal choice and people who have no business in it intruding.