COMMENTARY: "Women are already being prosecuted for having abortions," by Irin Carmon, published by MSNBC on March 30, 2016. (Irin Carmon is an Israeli-American journalist and commentator. She is a national reporter at MSNBC, covering women, politics, and culture for the website and on air.) Wikipedia
GIST: "Minutes after Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews earlier today that “there has to be some form of punishment” for women seeking abortions, many anti-abortion rights advocates immediately distanced themselves. A Cruz campaign staffer tweeted, “Trump
doesn’t understand the pro-life position because he’s not pro-life.” In
swiftly-issued statement, Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for
Life Education and Defense Fund, said: “No pro-lifer
would ever want to punish a woman who has chosen abortion. This is
against the very nature of what we are about. We invite a woman who has
gone down this route to consider paths to healing, not punishment.” The anti-abortion movement has spent decades working to counter
the accusation that it is anti-woman. Witness anti-abortion laws, like
the one currently being considered by the Supreme Court, that put new
restrictions on abortion providers in the name of protecting women’s
health, as opposed to protecting fetal life. Advocates for banning
abortion entirely have argued, extensively, that in the world they hope for, only abortion providers will be subject to criminal penalties. But even under the status quo, where Roe v. Wade technically
hasn’t been overturned, women are already being prosecuted and even
convicted on suspicion of having abortions. Just ask Purvi Patel, who is
appealing a 30-year prison sentence for her conviction for feticide in
Indiana. Prosecutors said she had ordered abortion pills online and
charged her with feticide, which had been initially touted as a way to prosecute people who attack pregnant women. The prosecutor in South Bend, Indiana who brought the case told MSNBC of prosecuting Patel under the feticide charge, “A more accurate title would be ‘unlawful termination of pregnancy.’” Or ask Tennessee’s Anna Yocca, who at 24 weeks pregnant used a coat
hanger to try to induce an abortion and later gave birth to a living
child. Earlier this month, she pled
not guilty to aggravated assault after having been initially charged
with attempted murder. Or Rennie Gibbs, a Mississippi teenager who after
a stillbirth was indicted
for “depraved heart” murder for allegedly smoking crack during her
pregnancy. Or Jennie Lynn McCormack, the Idaho woman who was initially
prosecuted for violating the state’s 20 week abortion ban, until a
federal court said it was unconstitutional. Jennifer Whalen of Pennsylvania wasn’t jailed for having an abortion herself. In 2014, she began serving a 9-18 month sentence for ordering pills online so her sixteen year old daughter could end her pregnancy......... Under current abortion law, women cannot be prosecuted for going to a
legal abortion provider and ending their pregnancies lawfully, which
depending on the state can involve multiple visits to a clinic, a
required ultrasound, a ban on using insurance coverage, and
state-mandated information that many doctors consider medically
inaccurate. But as the cases of these women across the country show, women have
been prosecuted under current restrictions on abortion, at times with
major felonies. The underlying logic of the laws is that the embryo or
fetus is worthy of legal protection to the point of prosecuting the
pregnant woman. A few hours after the town hall, Trump abruptly backed away from his
own comments, saying that in the world anti-abortion advocates would
prefer, in which abortion is illegal, the doctor who would perform an
illegal abortion would be prosecuted, not the woman. “The woman is a
victim in this case as is the life in her womb,” the Trump campaign said
in a statement. But a world in which abortion is banned entirely and women are
themselves prosecuted for breaking that law is not so hard to imagine,
after all."
The entire commentary can be found at:
The entire commentary can be found at:
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The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.
Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
