Monday, March 28, 2016

Bulletin: Anna Yocca: Tennessee; Originally charged with attempted murder after allegedly trying to kill her 24-week-old fetus with a coat hanger, she has been indicted on a lesser charge of aggravated assault. Reuters.


"A Tennessee woman originally charged with attempted murder after trying to kill her 24-week-old fetus with a coat hanger has been indicted on a lesser charge of aggravated assault, officials said on Wednesday.........Yocca, who in December pleaded not guilty to the murder charge, did not enter a plea on the assault charge on Tuesday. The original indictment, handed down Dec. 1 by a Rutherford County grand jury, said Yocca "did unlawfully and intentionally with premeditation attempt to kill" the fetus. Yocca was charged with attempting in September to abort the fetus in a bathtub filled with water, Murfreesboro Police said. She began bleeding heavily, and her boyfriend took her to a hospital. The next hearing in the case was scheduled for March 29. Under Tennessee law, an abortion must be performed by a licensed physician and is restricted by viability, according to the New York-based Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health policies. Tennessee has 14 abortion providers, none of which provides abortions after 16 weeks, according to the Tennesseean newspaper.
http://news.trust.org/item/20160316184042-8ofnh

See earlier post: "The coat hanger abortion is back, and that’s scary for all women. If a woman can be charged with attempted murder for trying to give herself an abortion, what stops police from investigating miscarriages? "The coat hanger is just the beginning; To be sure, it's shocking to see a new case of a "coat hanger abortion" — the symbol of pre–Roe v. Wade America, when women died or were maimed by the thousands every year because they were that desperate to end their unwanted pregnancies. "I never thought I would hear of a coat hanger abortion in my medical life,"" writes OB-GYN Jen Gunter. "But here's the most alarming part of Yocca's case: Abortion is still legal in America. Yocca is being prosecuted as if it weren't. She is being charged with attempted first-degree murder. That's a dangerous legal precedent for all pregnant women."

 http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2015/12/anna-yocca-tennessee-coat-hanger.html