Tennessee Woman Faces Jail For Coat Hanger Abortion (but there is NO war on women!!!)

[niyad]

Tennessee Woman Faces Jail For Coat Hanger Abortion

A Tennessee woman was arrested and charged with attempted murder last week, three months after an attempt to terminate her pregnancy using a coat hanger. In September, 31-year-old Anna Yocca attempted to self-abort by penetrating her uterus with a metal coat hanger. After bleeding profusely, Yocca was rushed to the hospital where she gave birth to a 24-week-old baby boy. Though the baby is alive, he has sustained damage to his lungs, heart and eyes as a result of the early birth and puncture wounds. Yocca, who is being held on a $200,000 bond, is scheduled to appear in court December 21.

Tennessee boasts some of the most restrictive anti-abortion legislation on the books. In addition to a ban on abortions after 12 weeks, the state has a dangerously broad version of a fetal harm law which outlaws "life-threatening harm" to a human embryo or fetus at any stage of gestation that includes ingesting an illegal drug while pregnant. The state also requires women seeking abortions to wait a full 48 hours, necessitating two separate trips to the clinic, and undergo state-mandated counseling prior to the procedure. Even abortion clinic accessibility is a challenge for women in Tennessee. According to the National Women's Law Center, over half of the women in the state live in a county without an abortion provider as of 2010.

Abortion advocates say the surge in anti-abortion TRAP laws resulting in the shuttering of abortion clinics nationwide will only increase the number of incidents of self-induced abortions among women like Yocca. A recent study conducted by the Texas Policy Evaluation Project found at least 100,000 women in Texas have attempted to self-abort their pregnancies in the wake of a wave of anti-abortion legislation and clinic closures in the state.

"Our greatest fear has come to [pass] and it could've been avoided," said Cherisse Scott, CEO of a Memphis-based reproductive justice organization SisterReach. "Women are attempting to self-abort due to restrictive abortion and punitive fetal assault legislation. The Tennessee legislature is responsible for the coat hanger; however, Ms. Yocca is on trial."

http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=15764

[snooper2]

1. Pretty sure abortions are not legal after 6 months nationwide

[niyad]

2. pretty sure you missed the whole point.

[snooper2]

3. This is the completely wrong case to explain "war on women"...but please proceed

[MH1]

5. See my comment #4. This is EXACTLY the case. nt.

[niyad]

7. oh, proceed I shall. reading comprehension is your friend.

[MH1]

4. I've seen people claiming to be pro-choice denouncing this woman.

Yes, at 24 weeks perhaps she should have done something different. But we don't know all the circumstances that drove her to try to self-abort at that point.

What we DO know, is that Tennessee has extremely restrictive laws that certainly obstructed this woman from making a more humane choice much earlier in the fetal development.

If we want to stop people from doing what she did, the answer is to make it easier to exercise the right to choose at ANY stage of the pregnancy, with encouragement toward better choices earlier - better routine contraception, use of emergency contraception, better access to early-term abortion.

I'm of the belief that once an unwanted pregnancy reaches a certain point (generally around viability), if there is no medical danger (including psychological) to the mother, it would be best for the pregnancy to be taken to term and the baby offered for adoption (with the option for TRUE anonymous adoption if the mother asks for it, i.e. no opening for this to be thrown in her face later in life). If the state has a compelling interest in this approach - and all the laws against late-term abortion imply that - then the state needs to provide any necessary support to a woman taking this path. But, if you go back to abortion as a truly legal medical procedure that can be obtained at essentially any hospital or general medical facility, and contraception is truly encouraged, this situation would only rarely be faced in the first place.

[niyad]

6. as I keep telling the woman-hating gestational slavers, if they truly gave a damn about "life"--

they would be demanding free, universal health care, a strong social safety net, decent education, etc., we know that they do nothing of the kind. it is all about controlling women, punishing them for their sexuality.

[phantom power]

8. This is the shitty world the conservatives want us to return to. Back-alley abortions for the 99%.

The 1% will always have their discrete access to "special services"

[niyad]

10. you are absolutely correct.

[DLevine]

9. The war against women continues,

and I'm afraid the anti-choice nutjobs are winning. By making safe abortions more and more difficult to obtain, they make it more likely that desperate women will do desperate things.

[niyad]

11. the reality is, that the woman-hating gestation slavers would just as soon have us all die off.

of course, how they get the cannon fodder and domestic workers then seems to escape their notice.

[DLevine]

14. And if a woman doesn't die from a self-induced abortion,

they can charge her with 1st degree murder/attempted murder. It's a win-win for them.

[niyad]

15. exactly!

[marmar]

12. People keep focusing on the 24 weeks and missing the larger point....

...... that the draconian anti-choice laws leave women with no options, and that more and more of this will happen. I love the Young Turks, but even they fell into this trap while discussing this incident.

[niyad]

13. you are absolutely correct about missing the point, as witness post 1 here.

[MH1]

16. Exactly,

the situation caused her to delay until it got to this point.

Were it easier for her to make her choice earlier, she probably would have.