Pennsylvania woman can have abortion, judge rules

PHILADELPHIA -- A judge gave a woman the go-ahead Monday to get an abortion after her ex-boyfriend won an extraordinary order that temporarily prevented her from terminating her pregnancy.

Common Pleas Judge Michael Conahan dissolved the temporary injunction issued against 23-year-old Tanya Meyers by another judge a week ago. Conahan also dismissed a lawsuit filed by the ex-boyfriend, John Stachokus, to force her to carry her fetus to term.

A woman's right to have an abortion "is not subject to being vetoed by a woman's husband or partner," said Conahan, who is based in eastern Pennsylvania's Luzerne County. "Neither an ex-boyfriend nor a fetus has standing to interfere with a woman's choice to terminate her pregnancy."

The order preventing Meyers from getting an abortion had outraged abortion rights activists. Meyers is about 10 weeks pregnant.

One of Meyers' lawyers, Susan Fritchey of the Women's Law Project, welcomed the decision issued Monday.

Stachokus, 27, had said he was willing to take full or partial custody of the child.

The case gained the support of abortion opponents and fathers' rights groups.

"I see it as a very sad case," said Dianna Thompson, executive director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. "The woman has the right to choose, which means the child has no right to live and the father has no right to raise this child."