This diary is a follow-up to Alegre's excellent diary, ACTION: The Overton Window & Abortion (Politics of Stillbirth)
The law the State's Attorney is using to charge this woman was passed in 2005 after the Laci Peterson trial. While searching for local reports to participate in Alegre's diary, I came across an AP report that I find not only chilling, but also emblematic of the confusion inherent in such legislative attempts to criminalize as murder the death of a fetus.
More below the fold ...
From the unattributed AP report
Maryland's fetal homicide law, like those in at least 35 other states, includes a provision protecting a pregnant woman from prosecution for actions such as self-induced abortion that result in the fetus's death.
So, ostensibly, this law protects a woman attempting to self-induce an abortion from being charged with murdering her fetus. But then, the next two paragraphs
By charging Christy Freeman with murder in the death of her child, Worcester County State's Attorney Joel J. Todd plans to test the limits of the law.
"He said that's going to be a legal issue that will be determined by the court," spokeswoman Mallory Knapp said Monday.
What court, I ask myself. Was his spokesperson merely stupid or misquoted and meant to say, "decided by a jury." Or is the prosecutor planning (hoping?) that this case will wend its way through the courts on successive appeals to end as another nail in the coffin for women's rights.
The AP article is short and doesn't have its own page on the local paper's web site. Check the sidebar on this page for more as I hesitate to quote much more from such a short article.
However, for total confusion compare the quotes from two state legislators in the article:
One claims this poor woman is protected from prosecution even if her fetus died from an attempt to self-induce an abortion; the other claims the exemption does not apply to "wanton or abusive behavior" which would include a self induced abortion.
And although the 'protect the babies until birth' chorus would excoriate me for having compassion for this woman, anyone who has followed this story should be asking themselves multiple questions about why this happened--it is too far outside "normal" behavior for there not to be an underlying story of mental health and/or physical health issues.
I have 3 daughters. For the life of me, I don't understand how everything women gained in the '60s and '70s when I was coming of age has been turned ass-over-teakettle in such a short time!