Nebraska teen sent to 90 days in jail over abortion
Nebraska teen sent to 90 days in jail over abortion
The woman pleaded guilty to using abortion pills to end her pregnancy and disposing of the foetus.
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Celeste Burgess, now 19, pleaded guilty to illegally concealing human remains after she had an abortion when around 28 weeks pregnant, beyond the 20-week limit then set by Nebraska law.
This was before the change in the law. It is certainly possible that there were medical issues or that Nebraska made it extremely difficult to get an abortion. I wish the article offered more details. 28 weeks is extremely late for an abortion.
If I am reading this right, this sentencing is not even for the abortion. It is for hiding the body.
For her, yes. The mother is being charged with providing an illegal abortion.
Not sure what the rules are for disposing of a late term abortion or what they should be.
I think it’s an illegal abortion because she is not licensed to provide abortions. At least that’s what I recall reading on this elsewhere. I could be mistaken as it would still have been illegal by state law of 20 weeks at the time. I do believe what this mother did is reckless. She provided a medical procedure that she isn’t qualified to oversee. All that being said, I’m pro choice, but I don’t know that this case really represents what people are saying it does.
This argument is circular since abortions after 20 weeks are prohibited. All of the qualified medicinal professionals are not allowed to provide late term abortions thus no qualified person could provide the medical care she needed. The fault is not with the mother for doing something unsafe but the state that requires that only unsafe conditions exist for the procedure.
I was talking about what the mother is specifically being charged with. I did a little extra looking and that charge (abortion by someone other than a licensed physician) was dismissed as she is pleading guilty to illegally providing an abortion after 20 weeks, false reporting, and tampering with human remains. I agree that restrictions on abortion have the potential to lead to unsafe abortions. I also think it’s true that someone unqualified should not attempt it. Both can be true I think.
That’s what I’m talking about as well. A rise in back alley abortions and thus abortions done by unqualified practitioners are a direct consequence of abortion bans. No one would need to hide “human” remains if a legal abortion was available. No one would be forced to find a provider who is available rather than qualified if the abortion was legal. One should not be judged for taking irresponsible measures if that is all that is available.
Here is a source https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2709326/
Idk that I can get with that last statement as a blanket for all cases, but I understand your point. Abortion should be legal and we as a society can still agree that someone unqualified shouldn’t be offering/providing them. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. Laws that prevent non-medical doctors from performing medical procedures would cover this, so making it specific to abortion isn’t necessary. I read an interesting write up on Jezebel about how these kinds of cases are really probing to see what the public will accept and that makes a lot of sense.
She aborted at 28 weeks when the law at the time was 20 weeks.
She also hid the remains.well, yeah - it's a criminal act. you can't just go around hiding bodies in the bushes, that's unsafe and a clear ethical violation
it's like 12 weeks now, so presumably the next person to attempt this will get a lot more than a 90-day slap on the wrist
We're not in fetus territory, here. A premature baby born at 28 weeks has an 80-90% chance of surviving and is unlikely to have any health issues.
The article doesn't say why they waited so long to reach this decision, but on the face of it this case starts to blur the line between abortion and murder.
A baby born at 28 weeks is absolutely likely to have health issues. What the fuck are you talking about? That would be extremely premature.
A healthy fetus has a good chance of surviving, sure. But what if she found out that the fetus had a severe medical issue that would not see it live long outside the womb? That is significantly different. The article does not give detail on that.
The face of it does not provide detail. I agree that this blurs the line but the line is blurry because of the lack of information.
It doesn't matter what the age of the child is. Abortion at any age is not murder, because no one has the right to use someone else's body without their consent (until Republicans succeed at allowing this). You're arguing that a fetus has no right to someone's body, until it grows up and reaches a magical "goldilocks zone" where it's not too old, not too young, but juuust right. Then you say, "can't abort, it's alive, it has a right to use someone's body without their consent!" and, then, once it's born, it loses that right! The entire situation you've been manipulated into agreeing to, makes a complete mockery of the very pro-life values it's supposed to espouse.