Handan Tufan/JINHA

AYDIN – Zeyla Süer died in the city of Aydın, Turkey after doctors refused her a medically necessary abortion. As Zeyla’s family seeks justice in the Constitutional Court, the court has now demanded that they pay all legal costs for the case.

Zeyla Süer, a resident of Turkey’s Aydın province, was four months pregnant when she developed severe health problems in her pregnancy and was at risk of having a miscarriage. She had developed pregnancy toxicity and required an immediate medically necessary abortion, legal in Turkey. Her doctors at Selçuk State Hospital had her sent to the provincial center’s Aydın Gynecology and Pediatric Hospital for an abortion the same day.

There, doctors denied Zeyla an abortion, instead keeping her on a regimen of drugs for four days rather than performing the procedure recommended. Zeyla succumbed to the pregnancy toxicity and lost her life.

After Zeyla’s family was repeatedly unable to obtain permission to open a case against the doctors at the local level, their lawyer, Nezahat Paşa, took the case to Turkey’s Constitutional Court, the highest court in the country. They have received another rejection from the court, which found the doctors to be “acting in accordance with medical rules, with no neglect of service.”

The court ruled that the family could not bring a malpractice case against the doctors and that the family will have to pay all legal costs related to the case.

The family’s lawyer will be appealing the case.

(fk/cm)