From a Norfolk, VA, teevee station:
Norfolk, Va. – Twenty-year-old Jessica Carpenter and 27-year-old Rachael Lowe are charged with felony producing an abortion or miscarriage in Norfolk. Court records say their friends told police the women searched for “ingestible items that would cause [Carpenter's] pregnancy to terminate.”
The search warrant affidavit for Carpenter’s medical records says she went into labor at six months pregnant and delivered a baby boy at DePaul Hospital in Norfolk, but he died 20 minutes later at the hospital.
Hmmm. So, she wants an abortion. However, here in Virginia our governor, lt. governor, attorney general, and GOTP-controlled state legislature have spent the last three years throwing every possible roadblock into the path of a woman seeking an abortion.
Left with nowhere to turn, these two women apparently searched for "abortion-producing herbal remedies." Yes, she could have sought help long before the six-month mark, but, when you're poor, powerless, and scared you don't think that way.
More below the squiggle.
Two examples of our VA GOTP in action.
1. They passed a mandatory ultrasound bill, requiring a woman who wants an abortion to have an ultrasound 24 hours before. The purpose, of course, is to show the women the fetus and shame her into cancelling the abortion. Insurance companies (if she even has insurance) won't pay for this because it's medically unnecessary. Then, there's the cost of traveling to the ultrasound facility -- you can't get one at you local pharmacy -- meals, etc., to and from. The whole purpose of this law was to shame women and throw up a roadblock.
2. They passed legislation that requires clinics performing abortions to, essentially, meet the same standards as hospitals -- wide hallways, generator back-up electrical supplies, and on and on and on. These likely will cause clinics to stop performing abortions, though the rules are now tied up in court.
As was illustrated by the recent abortion-doctor case in Pennsylvania, Virginia's rules prey on poor women. Rich women will simply go to their ob-gyn who will look the other way and take care of the problem.
At the minimum, Governor "No Jobs" Bob McDonnell and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (who now is the GOTP gubernatorial candidate for the election this November) should be charged along with these two women as accessories or accomplices. I'm not holding my breath.