A Virginia family is suing Bristol Women’s Health and Dickenson County’s Department of Social Services (DSS) for allegedly pressuring their 15-year-old daughter to undergo an abortion.
According to the lawsuit, the 15-year-old girl was three months pregnant, and was pressured into having an abortion by a DSS employee. Additionally, the abortion was kept secret from her parents, as the DSS director retroactively worked to get a judicial bypass put into place. The child was then taken to Bristol Women’s Health, where she was subjected to a chemical abortion (the abortion pill regimen).
The child is also listed as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, along with her parents. The lawsuit stated that the girl “intended to take her child to full term and intended to deliver her baby at the appropriate time.” Yet a DSS employee repeatedly told her to have an abortion and set up the appointment for her, even though the girl “remained upset throughout the process, and initially refused to cooperate with any abortion.”
“It’s just shocking that it happened. Some people would say you killed something. The young lady has killed her baby. That’s how she looks at it,” Tim McAfee, a lawyer representing the family, told News Channel 11, adding, “Whether you’re, whether you’re pro-life, or pro-choice, it seems to me that what happened here would offend anybody. It was not a legal consent, so whatever you did to (CRFM) was legally a battery and part of that battery was, you killed (her) baby.”
Yet Diane Derzis, who owns Bristol Women’s Health, denies any wrongdoing.
Derzis previously owned Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the infamous “pink house” abortion facility in Mississippi, made famous in the Supreme Court case that overturned Roe v. Wade. Before heading to Mississippi, she owned an abortion facility in Alabama, which was found to be in terrible condition. Three women were sent to the hospital in just one day, and her facility was found to have 76 pages worth of health code violations. When she moved to Mississippi, she seemingly continued to employ the same abortionist responsible for the injuries in Alabama.
In the past, Derzis has said that she believes God wants her to commit abortions.
Despite the testimony of the child in the lawsuit, Derzis denied any wrongdoing. “We have never and never would pressure someone to have an abortion,” she told News Channel 11. “I am confident that all the paperwork was done according to state law.”
