In an unprecedented legal action, an aborted baby won a wrongful death lawsuit against the abortionist who did the abortion.
The estate of a 26-week-old aborted child has collected $200,000 in a New Mexico wrongful-death settlement, in what attorneys on the case call the first payout of its kind to an aborted baby treated as a person under state law.
The case, Wabbington v. Boyd, was settled and dismissed with prejudice on Sept. 14. The defendants were late-term abortionist Curtis Wayne Boyd, who then operated as Southwestern Women’s Options; Emily Cohen; and the late Carmen Landau.
The complaint described the child as a “26-week-old viable fetus” and a “person” under New Mexico’s Wrongful Death Act, “entitled to equal protection under the law of New Mexico and the United States.” The suit alleged the mother was under the influence of methamphetamine when she went to the abortion center and therefore could not give valid informed consent.
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According to a report, Albuquerque attorney Mike Seibel, who brought the case with co-counsel Justin Hall, said both the mother and the baby’s estate sued.
“This is the first time that an abortionist has ever been sued for the wrongful death of a baby,” Seibel said. “There have been numerous cases for injuries to the mother, but in this case both the mother and the baby’s estate sued.”
“This case recognized the baby to have an estate, and receive compensation for wrongful death, as a ‘person’ under New Mexico law,” he said.
On video discussing the same settlement, Seibel said the woman came to the late-term clinic in 2020 for a 26-week abortion while on methamphetamines and regretted it the next day. New Mexico, he said, has programs for pregnant women addicted to drugs, and the clinic knew she was on meth.
“You can’t consent while you’re intoxicated with anything. It’s a basic thing,” he said. “So I sued for the wrongful death of the baby.”
He said he received the $200,000 check for that claim. “The first time this has ever happened in the history of the United States where a baby has sued the abortionist for the wrongful death in this situation.”
Seibel did not argue that New Mexico has banned abortion. He pointed to the opposite: the state still allows abortion even while its wrongful-death statute treats an unborn child as a person who can collect.
“You can collect for the death of the unborn baby as a person, but you can still murder the unborn baby under New Mexico law,” he said of that contradiction.
