(no subject)

[alexmegami]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_06/006447.php

Edit: Follow-up information here.

It looks like: 1) her family wanted her to get an abortion, his didn't; she agreed up until the 4-5 month mark.
2) He also beat her. (This still doesn't merit 40 years without parole, but it certainly casts him in a much worse light than I originally had him under.)

Please don't read the follow-up comments, it's just more people being idiots... but, here's the gist of the article:

---

In 2003, Texas passed an anti-abortion law that instituted a 24-hour waiting period; required doctors to show women pictures of fetuses, tell them about adoption procedures, and warn them that an abortion could lead to breast cancer; and forced abortion providers to keep the identities of all their patients in their records. Plus one more thing, as the Fort Worth Weekly reported at the time:

The bill as passed also includes another requirement that managed to escape the floodlights of controversy and debate: Abortions from 16 weeks onward now can be performed only in hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers.

The clause is a major Catch-22. Very few Texas hospitals perform elective abortions, and the few that do charge extremely high fees and require that the patients go through complicated ethics reviews. And of the state's hundreds of surgical centers, none performs abortions.

---

Which followed into this:

A 17-year-old girl got pregnant. She (for whatever reason) did not get her abortion within the 16 weeks, and (presumably) couldn't find a hospital to perform it.

So she tried to induce a miscarriage. Being unable to do so on her own, she asked her boyfriend to help her. He did so by stepping on her stomach. A week later, she miscarried.

Apparently, her family hauled him into court (she can't be held accountable; a factor in the laws so that women can't be accused of a crime for doing anything to their fetuses; presumably so they can't be taken to court for miscarrying)...

Where he was given a sentence of forty years.

To give you an idea, practicing without a medical license gets you something like five to ten, tops, plus a hefty fine (as far as I can find).

He nearly got the death penalty.

Comments

[roju.livejournal.com]

That is seriously, seriously fucked up. The whole story. From beginning to end. Wow. Texans have some messed up priorities.

[alexmegami]

Yep.

I mean, yes, she could have gotten an abortion earlier. (We'll ignore that she'd have had to inform her parents.) Yes, she could have gone to a hospital and had it done there (traumatic, from the sounds of it, but she could have.)

Yes, he probably shouldn't have stepped on her stomach.

But to have the prosecutor call it "the unholiest of crimes" and gun for the death penalty is just WOW. And not in any good way.

[bradbeattie.livejournal.com]

So a fetus is aborted through miscarriage and they call for the death penalty? Is that irony?

[alexmegami]

Well, through forced miscarriage, but yeah. I think maybe so. :P

[nijikongirl.livejournal.com]

Texas: Were our Laws are fucked up they hate it when Alaska reminds them how tinny they are. Did you know it's a Felony to own more than 5 sex toys in that state?

[alexmegami]

Yeah, you mentioned once.

[firstfaerie.livejournal.com]

There's something quite odd about it, though. How did her family know that he assisted her in her miscarriage? How could they know, unless she and the boyfriend told them? And surely, based on the laws and the difficulties she'd faced in getting an abortion before that point, they would have reason to suspect that Bad Things Would Come of telling people about inducing a miscarriage.

This is based on your summary, I haven't settled down to read the article yet. Does this get answered in there?

[alexmegami]

In order: I have no idea, ditto, and I'd think that too. Maybe they only found out when she actually had the miscarriage, and the truth came out?

And no, it hasn't been answered anywhere in there, nor can I find it in any of the online articles (a horrifying number of which are blogs calling for the girl to serve that 40-year sentence, along with any other abortionists, legal or not).

[alexmegami]

In case you don't come back to this:

1) When she underwent the miscarriage, the bleeding was bad enough/scary enough for them to call 911. The doctors also found bruising, and it came to light that Gerardo (the boyfriend) was beating her (even outside the whole stomach-crushing).

2) Why she didn't get the abortion when her parents were supportive, I have no idea, now. Maybe she was afraid of the boyfriend or his family. (This would seem inconsistent with her actions at the trial, but on the other hand, maybe not.)

I still think 40 years is excessive, and that they put him on trial for very much the wrong crime.

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

I think that sentence is crazy.

I could see treating it as manslaughter if the pregnancy was so advanced that the baby would have been viable outside the womb (that would be well past 16 weeks, mind you), AND if it was fairly clear medically that his actions had caused the miscarriage, but 40 years for the actions to the baby and NOTHING for beating the girl is ridiculous.

I say that speaking as someone who is really not a supporter of abortion. I do support its being legal at least in some situations, such as when the woman is abused or underage, but it is not something that I myself would feel morally comfortable doing unless the alternative was the probable death of both me and the baby. However, I think that Texas system is terrible. The way to prevent situations like this one isn't to emotionally blackmail women into not having abortions, though I do like the 24-hour wait idea. Instead, society should give women other feasible choices through financial and social support for poor, young, and unwed mothers, and make it possible for those who do choose abortion to make that choice early in the pregnancy when they're dealing with something that's closer to a clump of cells than a full-fledged human being.

[alexmegami]

I don't think the breast cancer info has been proven true; I know a lot of people have been pointing out from the source of this link that it isn't, but I haven't seen any actual studies. It may be one of those correlation/causation things.

The fetal pictures, from someone who has actually looked at a set illustrating what's done in a dilation and extraction, are pretty discomfiting.

I think she had the opportunity early in pregnancy - the issue was that until 4-5 months, she *wanted* to keep the baby - then realized what sort of social and educational impact that it would have on her.

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I really don't like the fetal pictures thing. That was the main thing I had in mind when I used the phrase 'emotional blackmail'.