Estate of aborted baby receives $200,000 wrongful-death settlement 

A New Mexico woman and her aborted baby’s estate has received a $200,000 settlement from the doctors she sued over the child’s death.

Jazel Wabbington sued on her own behalf and on behalf of Baby Wabbington’s estate. The Sept. 14 court order gave the $200,000 to both plaintiffs. That figure also covers legal fees and costs. The order doesn’t say how much will go to the baby’s estate.

Wabbington was 26 weeks pregnant when she went to Southwestern Women’s Options in Albuquerque for an abortion in 2020. Her lawsuit says she was high on methamphetamine when she signed the consent form. It says staff knew about her drug use and still performed the abortion.

She sued Dr. Curtis Boyd, Dr. Emily Cohen and the estate of Dr. Carmen Landau. Wabbington said she couldn’t legally agree to the abortion while high on meth. She also said the doctors never told her about programs that could help her quit using drugs and continue her pregnancy.

Wabbington said she asked the clinic to send her baby’s remains to a funeral home. They didn’t, she says. Instead, the clinic put them in medical waste and destroyed them.

The doctors didn’t admit wrongdoing in the settlement order. The case ended without a trial, so a court didn’t say whether Wabbington’s claims were true.

New Mexico courts have allowed wrongful-death suits for viable unborn children for decades. A 1980 appeals court ruling let a mother bring such a claim after her child died before birth. The state Supreme Court upheld that rule six years later. It also said the law doesn’t cover unborn children who cannot yet survive outside the womb.

Wabbington’s lawsuit says her baby was viable.

People have sued abortion providers on behalf of aborted children before. An Alabama father sued for the estate of a child called Baby Roe, but a court dismissed his case in 2020. Additionally, an Arizona lawsuit named an aborted child’s estate as a plaintiff this decade, but that case is still ongoing.

Wabbington’s lawyer, Michael Seibel, told Live Action News he thinks this is the first payout to an aborted child’s estate in a lawsuit against abortionists.

The case may give other women a path to sue if they say a clinic performed an abortion without their proper consent.

It could matter in cases involving pressure or force.

Heartlander News has covered a Louisiana woman who says her boyfriend pressured her to take abortion pills. The New Mexico settlement doesn’t decide her case or change the law in other states.