Ala. Supreme Court allows wrongful-death lawsuit after miscarriage

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pregnant fetal heartbeat

The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday reversed a trial judge’s order that dismissed a wrongful-death claim against a woman who filed a lawsuit against an obstetrician after a miscarriage when she was five to six weeks pregnant.

In the civil case, Kimberly A. Stinnett v. Karla G. Kennedy, M.D., Stinnett was suing Dr. Kennedy for the wrongful-death of her unborn child. Two days after she found out she was pregnant, Stinnett experienced abdominal cramping and fever. Kennedy was concerned that Stinnett was experiencing another ectopic pregnancy and performed a procedure to end the pregnancy. It was later discovered in the operative report, the pregnancy was in fact uterine and there was  “no evidence of ectopic pregnancy.”
The Justices reversed the lower court’s ruling citing a state law making it a crime to kill or harm “an unborn child in utero at any stage of development.”