Recently, the ultra-conservative 8th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated an involuntary manslaughter charge against a Native woman from Sisseton, South Dakota. That charge is based on allegations that she ingested illegal drugs while pregnant, resulting in the death of her newborn. Jessica Mason Pieklo and Imani Gandy explain why this decision is an alarming escalation of the anti-choice efforts to establish fetal personhood and punish people for their pregnancy outcomes.
I read about this story earlier.
So, if baby had been born dead at >38 weeks (e.g., if she hadn’t gone to the hospital for assistance at 38 weeks), she wouldn’t have been charged under Unborn Something-Something Act? But she sought help and baby was born alive. So judges saw a chance to punish her. They getcha comin’ and going.
This is horrifying. Reminds me of the other case (since reversed) where the pregnant mother was shot in the stomach and she was charged for the death of her dead fetus.
I thought Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” was out there when I first read it. However, with each passing year as these theocratic authoritarians exert more power, I realize Atwood was a prophetess, her eye focused clearly on a bleak, scary movement.
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This represents appalling, horrible backwardness, the New American Inquisition.
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“The investigation showed that the only true victim in this was the unborn baby,’’ said Lt Danny Reid of Pleasant Grove police following the shooting, reported AL.com in December. “It was the mother of the child who initiated and continued the fight which resulted in the death of her own unborn baby.”
If this is the case you are referring to she recklessly endangered her unborn child resulting in it’s death. She was the instigator of the unlawful assault, not a victim.
The charge was wholly appropriate and she should have been convicted and sent to prison for a very long term.
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