Wednesday, August 11, 1999
Inmate sues to get abortion
Claim: Jail policy requires court order
BY TIM BONFIELD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A pregnant inmate at the River City Correctional Center filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday aimed at forcing the jail to allow her to get an abortion.
The prisoner, named only as “Jane Doe,” started serving an 18-month sentence at the minimum-security jail in Camp Washington a month ago. Her suit says she is about eight weeks pregnant, doesn't want to have a baby in jail and seeks an abortion at her own expense.
A hearing on a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to allow the abortion to take place is scheduled Thursday before U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott.
The inmate says John Barron, River City's director, refused permission to leave the prison to get an abortion, even though other prisoners are taken off-site routinely for other medical treatments.
The lawsuit, filed by Cincin nati attorneys Alfonse Gerhardstein and Jennifer Branch, alleges River City's policy is that abortion services will not be permitted without a court order.
However, abortion is a legal procedure that cannot be denied to women by “state actors” such as prisons, the suit contends.
Other courts have required other prisons to make transportation arrangements and even pay for abortions, including a November 1998 case in Allentown, Pa., and a 1987 ruling from Monmouth County, N.J.
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,” the suit states.
In addition, River City's policy on abortion for inmates differs from state prison policy, which allows inmates to get abortions, Ms. Branch said.
Mr. Barron was not in his office Tuesday. Calls were referred to Judge Norbert Nadel of Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, who heads a judicial board that oversees River City. Judge Nadel did not return calls.
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