Jeb Bush Appoints Legal Guardian for Unborn Child

According to Fox News the 22-year-old woman has no family, is too disabled to speak and cannot help police find who raped and impregnated her. Moreover, identification of her attacker has been stymied because she is unable to consent to a DNA test.

"Given the facts of this case, it is entirely appropriate that an advocate be appointed to represent the unborn child's best interests in all decisions," Bush said Tuesday in a statement.

The decision infuriated abortion advocates, the National Organization of Women and the American Civil Liberties Union who filed a court challenge insisting that the unborn baby is not a person. In their view, it appears, the baby should be killed before it reaches full term.

"He [Gov. Bush] ought to be ashamed of himself," Howard Simon, executive director of ACLU of Florida told Fox. "That he would personally step in and take responsibility to coerce a developmentally disabled rape victim to carry a pregnancy to term."

Bush's decision overruled child welfare officials who had said such an appointment would be illegal. A local Department of Children & Families (DCF) attorney, citing a state Supreme Court decision that described a guardian for an unborn fetus as "clearly improper," had said the state only would seek to have a guardian appointed for the woman.

But DCF Secretary Jerry Regier told Fox he agrees with the governor and has told the department's Orlando office to seek two guardians. He said he had always been under the belief that a guardian would also be appointed for the baby until reading news accounts of the local office's decision.

"My first thought was we need to work on our communication because this is certainly an issue that is somewhat unique," Regier told Fox. "The governor's position and my position has been made clear."

An anti-abortion rights group praised the governor's intervention.

"The unborn child is as deserving of protection as this mother is deserving as protection," Lynda Bell, spokeswoman for Florida Right to Life told Fox News.

Bush's decision to treat the unborn infant as a person is in line with that of California prosecutors who are charging Scott Peterson with murder for allegedly killing his unborn child as well as the baby's mother.