"Four US activists, including a Northampton grandmother — walked free
on Tuesday following a brief trial for unlawfully entering the embassy
of El Salvador in Washington to protest that country’s draconian
abortion laws. Abortion is forbidden in El Salvador, even in the case of
rape, incest, and risk to the life of the mother. At least 129 women
are reported to have been prosecuted on pregnancy-related charges
between 2001 and 2011. At least 17 have been handed prison sentences of
up to 40 years for giving birth too early, or miscarrying under
conditions that officials suspected were self-induced......... It’s admirable that American activists are calling attention to
injustice in El Salvador. But they did not have to look overseas to find
examples of women being sent to jail for miscarrying or trying to end
their pregnancies. In March, an Indiana woman named Purvi Patel was
sentenced to 20 years in prison for child neglect and feticide after
she showed up bleeding in the emergency room. In order to get a
conviction in court, prosecutors used e-mails she had written to a
company that sells abortion drugs online. A 23-year-old Georgia woman
named Kenlissia Jones was
recently jailed and charged with murder after she gave birth in a car
on her way to the hospital to a child who died minutes later. She had
taken a prescription abortion pill ordered online from a company in
Canada. Although the murder charges were dropped last month, she remains
charged with possession of a dangerous drug. And in 2011, an Idaho
woman named Jennie Linn McCormack was
brought before a judge for taking pills she bought online that induced a
miscarriage – a crime punishable in that state by five years in prison.
She’d told a friend about her ordeal, who reported it to police.
McCormack fought the charges, and eventually won in court. But her case
illustrates a disturbing trend: Some states are passing laws that are
far too close to El Salvador’s."
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2015/07/09/miscarriage-justice-salvador-and/Po5Wjvsu3gvTqZHART1MyL/story.html