Two items caught my eye today in the print edition of the Salt Lake Tribune
(02/11/2006):
"Bill on teen abortion goes to Senate"
"W. Jordan police say teen gave birth, left baby boy on shelf to die"
More after the break...
"Bill on teen abortion goes to Senate"
Under current Supreme Court standards, parental consent laws must provide minors a judicial bypass option in order to be held constitutional. But Utah State Rep. Kerry Gibson (R-Ogden) apparently doesn't trust Utah's famously liberal judiciary with this job. He said he's afraid "activist judges" would abuse the system, and has therefore proposed HB85, which would in all cases require doctors to notify a girl's parents 24 hours prior to the procedure. The ACLU of Utah's Legal Director has responded, calling Gibson's bill "constitutionally infirm." She said that "Notification can act as a practical veto." And though the Senate Judiciary Committee debated the bill's potential legal problems, they sent the bill on to the full Senate anyway. Committee member Mark Madsen (R-Lehi), was reported to have commented to the effect that "sending a girl home to 'disapproving' parents is not unreasonable, noting teens who skip school to go skiing and then are injured also have to face unhappy parents." The Tribune also reported "concerned mother" Becky Utley as saying "I really believe in rights to choose. But with those choices come responsibilities."
"W. Jordan police say teen gave birth, left baby boy on shelf to die"
Last February, an 18-year-old girl in West Jordan, who had kept her pregnancy a secret because she was "afraid of her parent's reaction," gave birth unassisted in her bathroom. After delivering, the girl found that the baby wasn't breathing. She placed him on a closet shelf, disposed of the afterbirth and bloody towels in a plastic trash bag, and then called her boyfriend who called his sister who came and took the baby to the hospital. But it was too late and the baby died. The Salt Lake County DA's Office filed charges against the girl this week for third-degree felony child-abuse homicide. The Tribune article paraphrases some of the language from the DA's charges, which blast the teen for "[doing] little to clear the baby's airways" after she cut the umbilical cord, failing to call 911 immediately, and finally for "failure to provide warmth, comfort, nutrition, and skilled medical care at the time of delivery." Local police, who referred the case the the DA's office, said they were surprised by the charge. I was surprised too, until I recalled another charge made by that same Salt Lake County DA's Office about 2 years ago.
"Mother is charged in stillbirth of a twin" (03/12/2004)
As reported in the Deseret News, 28-year-old Melissa Rowley was charged with first-degree murder in court papers which referred to Rowland's "deprave indifference to human life" What had she done? She had allegedly had not taken a doctor's recommendation to have an early c-section. After carrying her twins to term, one of them was stillborn. At the time, the DA's office claimed Rowland's decision was driven by vanity, that she was afraid the c-section scar would negatively impact her love life. Rowland had already had two previous caesarian births, and the twins themselves were delivered by caesarian. Three month's later, prosecutors dropped the murder charge in a plea bargain. Rowland plead guilty to third-degree felony child endangerment, based not on her alleged refusal of a c-section, but rather on her admitted use of cocaine and alcohol during the pregnancy. The stillborn baby was not found to have any drugs in his system.
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