Judge Throws Out Lawsuit Against Charleston Abortion Clinic

From the Charleston Gazette:

“A Kanawha County judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed in 2013 by a woman who claimed her abortion was botched at a clinic on Charleston’s West Side.

Kanawha Circuit Judge Joanna Tabit entered an order Monday dismissing the lawsuit filed by the Family Policy Council of West Virginia on behalf of Itai Gravely. The judge dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning it can never be refiled.

…Stephens and the health center denied the allegations and filed a summary judgment motion asking Tabit to dismiss the complaint as a matter of law without a jury trial, which had been set to begin next month. Tabit heard arguments on that motion during a hearing last month, where she called the claims in the lawsuit “immaterial and, frankly, sensational.”

In her 12-page order, Tabit concluded that Gravely didn’t tell healthcare providers at the clinic she was addicted to heroin “which may have caused later complications when pain-relieving measures were employed during the procedure.” Read the full story »