College student sues NFL star: claims his family is pressuring her to abort their baby
BY BEN JOHNSON
- Tue Jan 14, 2014 11:05 EST
- Tags: Forced Abortion
HOUSTON, TX, January 14, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A 20-year-old college student is seeking a restraining order against the NFL’s Arian Foster, because she says she wants him and his family to stop pressuring her to abort his baby.
Brittany Norwood, a senior at the University of Houston, alleges in court documents that last summer she became sexually involved with the Houston Texans’ running back, unaware he was married with children.
She is now 17 weeks pregnant and expecting a baby boy in June. According to documents obtained by the entertainment website TMZ, Norwood had a DNA test that proves with 99.9 percent certainty that Arian is the father. That’s when she said harassment began.
Pages of text messages, which she says came from Arian, ask her to have an abortion so that Foster will not lose his wife and children. She said Arian’s brother, Abdul, told her, “You know, if you loved Arian at all you would have an abortion, because this child is going to ruin everything.”
Her court filings say that Foster and his sibling engaged in “a pattern of extreme and outrageous conduct” that is causing her “severe emotional distress.”
The lawsuit is seeking a restraining order, so the NFL star and his family will stop haranguing her to abort a baby she wants to keep.
“We want his conduct stopped, and we want the harassment to end,” her lawyer, Douglas York, toldKHOU television.
Under Texas law, she could abort up to 20 weeks, or obtain a late-term abortion in neighboring New Mexico.
The lawsuit also asks Foster to take a DNA test establishing paternity.
To date, he has declined comment to numerous media outlets seeking his side of the story. Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk wrote that Foster has “the right to dispute all allegations contained in the complaint, and to otherwise pursue all defenses aimed at securing a favorable outcome.”
The pregnancy scandal has generated more headlines for Foster than his football career. He had back surgery last fall after playing only eight less-than-memorable games.
Norwood’s allegations are consistent with what pro-life leaders say is a ubiquitous problem: coerced abortion. Post-abortive women have testified that they felt pressured – or in some cases were forced to abort – by parents, boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, husbands, abusers, even policemen.
A recent meta-analysis of 74 studies worldwide found that one of every four women who seeks an abortion was abused physically, mentally, emotionally, or sexually. The study’s authors include “coerced decision-making” as a factor contributing to the frequency of abortion and repeat abortion among abused women.
Read More:
wyandotcountyrightolife 