Thoughts on choice
May. 22nd, 2012 02:22 pmWoman whose fetus died in suicide bid out of jail
Basically, this woman was 8 months pregnant, her boyfriend left her, and she ate rat poison to kill herself and the fetus. Now she is being charged with murder because her fetus died as a result. Obviously this brings up a whole raft of questions, the most pressing for me being: How far along in a pregnancy is the fetus a "fetus" with no separate rights of protection as a legal "person?" Because on the one hand, it's a shame a fetus that could be born viably as a baby at that stage was harmed and killed. On the other hand, it's obviously still dependent on a clearly existing person's host body, or it would have been born by then - the implication being, if we say it's okay to protect some fetuses from their carriers (except, say, in a surrogacy contract, which is a whole separate animal), do we open the door to saying NO woman has rights over deciding the termination of her fetus at much earlier stages of development? Or can we truly discern shades of gray, legally, on an issue like this?
This is a really, really uncommon kind of case; women who go to the trouble of willingly carrying a fetus this far rarely decide to just chuck it all near the end. (This is why the whole "partial birth" debate irritates me - it's a tale perpetuated by forced-birthers to prey on emotions. Doctors performing abortions at this stage are doing so because the woman is in medical danger from the fetus, or the fetus itself is damaged enough to be a concern.)
Sort of tangential - but did you know suicide is considered a crime in most states, if not all? Failed, discovered attempts aren't usually prosecuted because the doctrine of ordering treatment for mental imbalance usually takes over.
Anyway, this is a sticky wicket, and I do pity the baby forced out as a result, that had to suffer. Even if I were to support *any* kind of criminal charges against this woman - and I don't know yet if I do - it does not change my basic position of choice for women, legally speaking, and that proper medically regulated abortions should remain legal (who knows - if this woman had gone to an abortion doctor, s/he might have explained the complications and referred her to counseling, and she might have changed her mind. At any rate, it proves yet again that society doesn't stop abortions by simply removing legal access).
Basically, this woman was 8 months pregnant, her boyfriend left her, and she ate rat poison to kill herself and the fetus. Now she is being charged with murder because her fetus died as a result. Obviously this brings up a whole raft of questions, the most pressing for me being: How far along in a pregnancy is the fetus a "fetus" with no separate rights of protection as a legal "person?" Because on the one hand, it's a shame a fetus that could be born viably as a baby at that stage was harmed and killed. On the other hand, it's obviously still dependent on a clearly existing person's host body, or it would have been born by then - the implication being, if we say it's okay to protect some fetuses from their carriers (except, say, in a surrogacy contract, which is a whole separate animal), do we open the door to saying NO woman has rights over deciding the termination of her fetus at much earlier stages of development? Or can we truly discern shades of gray, legally, on an issue like this?
This is a really, really uncommon kind of case; women who go to the trouble of willingly carrying a fetus this far rarely decide to just chuck it all near the end. (This is why the whole "partial birth" debate irritates me - it's a tale perpetuated by forced-birthers to prey on emotions. Doctors performing abortions at this stage are doing so because the woman is in medical danger from the fetus, or the fetus itself is damaged enough to be a concern.)
Sort of tangential - but did you know suicide is considered a crime in most states, if not all? Failed, discovered attempts aren't usually prosecuted because the doctrine of ordering treatment for mental imbalance usually takes over.
Anyway, this is a sticky wicket, and I do pity the baby forced out as a result, that had to suffer. Even if I were to support *any* kind of criminal charges against this woman - and I don't know yet if I do - it does not change my basic position of choice for women, legally speaking, and that proper medically regulated abortions should remain legal (who knows - if this woman had gone to an abortion doctor, s/he might have explained the complications and referred her to counseling, and she might have changed her mind. At any rate, it proves yet again that society doesn't stop abortions by simply removing legal access).