In re Guardianship of J.D.S./Amici (Florida)
In 2003, a severely disabled, 22-year-old Florida woman was raped—and became pregnant—during her stay at an Orlando group home run by the state’s Department of Children and Families. Although she has been under the continuous care of the agency since she was three, the state jeopardized her interests and health by neglecting to assign a guardian to her. Governor Jeb Bush compounded his state agency’s failure to protect this young woman by announcing that the state would seek to have a separate guardian appointed to protect the interests of the fetus. Despite a state supreme court ruling that such a move was improper, Governor Bush brushed aside the question of what was best for the woman and attempted to give equal weight to the interests of her fetus. In response to the Governor’s announcement, the Center and the American Civil Liberties Union filed an amicus brief asking that any request by the state to appoint a guardian for the fetus be denied. In so doing, our purpose was to ensure that the woman’s health remained paramount and that any decision concerning her medical care—including any decision to continue or terminate her pregnancy—was based solely on her best interests.
Vo v. France/Amici
(European Court of Human Rights/France)
In November 2003, the Center filed an amicus brief with the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Vo v. France. The case arose from an incident involving a French doctor who mistakenly ruptured a pregnant woman’s amniotic sac when he mistook her for another patient who was not pregnant. The Center’s brief argued that the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms did not protect the rights of an unborn fetus. It further argued that recognizing an unborn fetus’s right to life would threaten women’s human rights by permitting a government to privilege the rights of a fetus over those of a pregnant woman. The ECHR issued a decision in July 2004, in which it declined to recognize a fetus as a person under the European Convention. To learn more:
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