News > Culture > Pregnancy is Not a Promise

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TUESDAY AUGUST 7 2007 4:00 PM

Pregnancy is Not a Promise

Submitted by Bitch_PhD

Tags: reproductive rights, pregnancy, murder

Ugh.

Here's a story about a fucked up situation where clearly *something* is not right, but lacking evidence prosecutors are trying to go after a woman for "murdering" a stillborn baby.

A 37-year-old taxi cab company owner from Ocean City, MD has been charged with murder after she sought emergency care for complications of a late-term pregnancy loss. . . .
the medical examiner has already certified that the fetus she is charged with "murdering" was stillborn. She's up on murder charges because of a 2005 state law that treats the killing of viable fetuses as murder.

Now, clearly in this particular case something weird is going on:

Inside a trunk in the living room, they found the remains of two fetuses in two plastic bags and what appeared to be a placenta in a third bag. In a vanity under the bathroom sink, they discovered a 26-week-old, 2 1/2 -pound stillborn child wrapped in a blood-smeared towel. And in the upper section of a Winnebago parked outside were the remains of a fourth tiny body.

Whether the weirdness is some kind of horrific unlicensed abortion practice, or the remains of a series of home abortions, or something else entirely, isn't clear. Presumably whatever the explanation is, the woman and her husband are a little nutso.

But what is clear is that none of that weirdness--fetal remains, a placenta, a stillborn baby, medical care following an at-home stillbirth with an undelivered placenta, or even bizarrely implausible statements about not being pregnant--is actually illegal. And the law in question, as reported--that killing a viable fetus is murder--is unconstitutional (for the time being, anyway) under Roe v. Wade.

So what we've got is a case where a weird situation is being prosecuted under an ill-advised and fucked-up law, and where the understandable "something's wrong, and someone oughta be held accountable" reaction is being pursued despite the obvious injustice of holding women accountable for stillborn babies, and the obvious potential problem of setting a seriously messed up precedent.

This sort of thing drives me batshit. On the one hand you've got DAs being extremely cautious about rape prosecutions because they're difficult to prove; on the other, you've got (other) DAs going after women because their pregnancies didn't result in a healthy baby.

Part of this is doubtless simply because some DAs are cautious, and others are stupid assholes. But you can't help suspecting that it's also just got a wee little bit of something to do with a broader culture that thinks that women's bodies and the things that happen to them are a spectator sport, and that the women themselves are the last people we oughta trust about what's actually happened.

Bitch_PhD knows it's a cliche, but still wishes that people would commit the phrase "U.S. Out of My Uterus" to memory. "Keep Your Laws Off My Body" is a good one, too.

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Comments

IDGAS

Jackson Heights, NY

March 2004

AUG 07, 2007 04:11 PM

Update

In a stunning turn to a sensational case, prosecutors dropped murder charges yesterday against an Ocean City woman in the death of her pre-term baby last week but charged her with killing a full-term infant she gave birth to several years earlier, authorities announced.

While in custody on the earlier charge, Christy L. Freeman, 37, told a police detective that she had given birth to twins several years ago and let at least one drown in the toilet before stowing it beneath her bathroom sink, according to police charging documents.

mrsinister98

Milwaukee, WI

September 2006

AUG 07, 2007 04:13 PM

you women with your stupid abortion shit, that's what drives me fucking nuts.

Bitch_PhD

I'm lost

February 2007

AUG 07, 2007 04:16 PM

IDAGAS, thanks for the update.

"Stunning" seems a bit of an overstatement to me. Heh.

Alz

Lincoln, NE

February 2007

AUG 07, 2007 04:17 PM

So if I read this correctly, they were originally charging her with murder for having a stillborn child?

Then it was later retracted and then they charged her for the murder of a different baby?

Well.... that is some fucked up shit.

PatrickY

Vancouver, WA

December 2003

AUG 07, 2007 04:19 PM

Jesus Christ. This story is just fucked up anyway you look at it. She let a baby drown in the toilet?

JoLeigh

SUICIDEGIRL

Florida, USA

AUG 07, 2007 04:19 PM

mrsinister98 said:
you women with your stupid abortion shit, that's what drives me fucking nuts.

please tell me this is sarcasm

misguidedd

Edmonton, AB

November 2003

AUG 07, 2007 04:23 PM

I'd be concerned if the police weren't involved in that kind of a situation, because if she has four corpses of various newborn/fetal statuses, she obviously needs some sort of counselling or medical care. That's an odd charge, and frankly a ridiculous one to try to stick her with and actually take to court, but maybe it's all they had they could immediately charge her with in order to hold her for more than 72 hours while they figured out exactly what the hell TO charge her with. As long as it doesn't serve to somehow further undermine Roe v. Wade, I don't have a problem with this idea. As a poster above made clear, some details have obviously came out since, and the prosecution has dropped its initial charge and pursued one that doesn't threaten women's civil liberties. This kind of legal manouvering is not unusual in the slightest, and nothing sets precedent until someone's actually convicted of something, no?

mamet

Charleston, SC

March 2005

AUG 07, 2007 04:24 PM

mrsinister98 said:
you women with your stupid abortion shit, that's what drives me fucking nuts.

Oh, jesus christ.

DownNeck

Jersey City, NJ

March 2006

AUG 07, 2007 04:26 PM

so the cops get called in to an obviously fucked up situation where something illegal is likely to have happened, they hold the woman on the best charge they can pull together with the information they have so they can further investigate. de rigueur for police.

bitch_phd gets ahold of this information and overreacts, accusing the entirety of american culture of sexism leading to the unjust accusation of an obviously innocent woman. de rigueur for bitch_phd.

JunkyardAngel

San Gabriel, CA

February 2006

AUG 07, 2007 04:27 PM

She is a fucked up person.

You REALLY think she had that many stillbirths or miscarriages; really think she wasn't doing something, at the very least, naughty?

Give me a break.

Tiger_Fodder

Braintree, MA

June 2007

AUG 07, 2007 04:29 PM

That is one story for the books. Who will play her in the Lifetime movie?