This is frightening—now they're arresting women for ending their own pregnancies. A 23-year-old Georgia woman who sought treatment at a hospital after self-inducing an abortion was arrested on murder charges. Russ Bynum
reports:
Jones was arrested Saturday at the hospital where she sought help after a county social services worker called police, according to an Albany police report.
A hospital social worker told police that Jones had taken four Cytotec pills that she ordered online and delivered her fetus after breaking up with her boyfriend. Cytotec is a brand name for misoprostol, a prescription drug used in combination with mifepristone to induce non-surgical abortions. The pills are sold with prescriptions in the U.S., but available over the counter and online in many countries.
The social worker told police Jones went into labor and delivered the fetus in a car on the way to the hospital. The fetus did not survive.
Great. First, they make it
more difficult to get an abortion, then they just start arresting women who are so desperate they take matters into their own hands. The district attorney dismissed the murder charge after reviewing state law and concluding it prohibited the prosecution of women for ending their own pregnancies.
Advocates on both sides of the abortion issue were shocked by the murder charge.
"I have been involved in the pro-life movement for well over 20 years, and I'm not aware of a situation like this ever," Genevieve Wilson, a director of the anti-abortion group Georgia Right to Life, said Thursday. "I'm very surprised by it."