THE COMPLETE INSANITY AND MADNESS OF ANT- ABORTIONISTS

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RICKAMAVEN
Herf-A-Holic Topic Starter

14 years ago

WHILE I AN AGAINST ABORTION IN MY FAMILY,
I DON'T BOTHER OTHER PEOPLE ABOUT MY BELIEFS.

THE SUPREME COURT HAS RULED ABORTION IS LEGAL IN THIS COUNRY.

15-Year-Old Girl Faces Life in Prison for a Miscarriage?
Why Conservatives Are Criminalizing Pregnant Women
The creeping criminalization of pregnant women is a new
front in the culture wars over abortion.
July 4, 2011 |

Rennie Gibbs is accused of murder, but the crime she is alleged
to have committed does not sound like an ordinary killing. Yet she
faces life in prison in Mississippi over the death of her unborn child.

Gibbs became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006
in a stillbirth when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy.
When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit –
though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do
with the baby's death – they charged her with the "depraved-heart
murder" of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence.

Gibbs is the first woman in Mississippi to be charged with murder
relating to the loss of her unborn baby. But her case is by no means
isolated. Across the US more and more prosecutions are being brought
that seek to turn pregnant women into criminals.

"Women are being stripped of their constitutional personhood and
subjected to truly cruel laws," said Lynn Paltrow of the campaign National
Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW). "It's turning pregnant women into
a different class of person and removing them of their rights."

Bei Bei Shuai, 34, has spent the past three months in a prison cell in Indianapolis
charged with murdering her baby. On 23 December she tried to commit suicide by
taking rat poison after her boyfriend abandoned her.

Shuai was rushed to hospital and survived, but she was 33 weeks pregnant
and her baby, to whom she gave birth a week after the suicide attempt and whom
she called Angel, died after four days. In March Shuai was charged with murder
and attempted foeticide and she has been in custody since without the offer of bail.
In Alabama at least 40 cases have been brought under the state's "chemical
endangerment" law. Introduced in 2006, the statute was designed to protect children
whose parents were cooking methamphetamine in the home and thus putting their
children at risk from inhaling the fumes.

Amanda Kimbrough is one of the women who have been ensnared as a result of the
law being applied in a wholly different way. During her pregnancy her fetus was
diagnosed with possible Down's syndrome and doctors suggested she consider a
termination, which Kimbrough declined as she is not in favour of abortion.

The baby was delivered by caesarean section prematurely in April 2008 and died
19 minutes after birth.

Six months later Kimbrough was arrested at home and charged with "chemical
endangerment" of her unborn child on the grounds that she had taken drugs during
the pregnancy – a claim she has denied.

"That shocked me, it really did," Kimbrough said. "I had lost a child, that was enough."

She now awaits an appeal ruling from the higher courts in Alabama, which if she loses
will see her begin a 10-year sentence behind bars. "I'm just living one day at a time,
looking after my three other kids," she said. "They say I'm a criminal, how do I answer
that? I'm a good mother."

Women's rights campaigners see the creeping criminalization of pregnant women
as a new front in the culture wars over abortion, in which conservative prosecutors are
chipping away at hard-won freedoms by stretching protection laws to include foetuses,
in some cases from the day of conception. In Gibbs' case defence lawyers have argued
before Mississippi's highest court that her prosecution makes no sense. Under Mississippi
law it is a crime for any person except the mother to try to cause an abortion.

"If it's not a crime for a mother to intentionally end her pregnancy, how can it be a crime
for her to do it unintentionally, whether by taking drugs or smoking or whatever it is,"
Robert McDuff, a civil rights lawyer asked the state supreme court.

McDuff told the Guardian that he hoped the Gibbs prosecution was an isolated example.
"I hope it's not a trend that's going to catch on. To charge a woman with murder because
of something she did during pregnancy is really unprecedented and quite extreme."

He pointed out that anti-abortion groups were trying to amend the Mississippi constitution
by setting up a state referendum, or ballot initiative, that would widen the definition of
a person under the state's bill of rights to include a fetus from the day of conception.

Some 70 organisations across America have come together to file testimonies, known
as amicus briefs, in support of Gibbs that protest against her treatment on several levels.
One says that to treat "as a murderer a girl who has experienced a stillbirth serves only
to increase her suffering".

Another, from a group of psychologists, laments the misunderstanding of addiction that
lies behind the indictment. Gibbs did not take cocaine because she had a "depraved heart"
or to "harm the fetus but to satisfy an acute psychological and physical need for that
particular substance", says the brief.

Perhaps the most persuasive argument put forward in the amicus briefs is that if such
prosecutions were designed to protect the unborn child, then they would be utterly counter-
productive: "Prosecuting women and girls for continuing [a pregnancy] to term despite
a drug addiction encourages them to terminate wanted pregnancies to avoid criminal
penalties. The state could not have intended this result when it adopted the homicide statute."

Paltrow sees what is happening to Gibbs as a small taste of what would be unleashed were the
constitutional right to an abortion ever overturned. "In Mississippi the use of the murder statute is
creating a whole new legal standard that makes women accountable for the outcome of their
pregnancies and threatens them with life imprisonment for murder."

From protection to punishment

At least 38 of the 50 states across America have introduced fetal homicide laws that were
intended to protect pregnant women and their unborn children from violent attacks by third
parties– usually abusive male partners – but are increasingly being turned by renegade
prosecutors against the women themselves.

South Carolina was one of the first states to introduce such a foetal homicide law. National
Advocates for Pregnant Women has found only one case of a South Carolina man who
assaulted a pregnant woman having been charged under its terms, and his conviction was
eventually overturned. Yet the group estimates there have been up to 300 women arrested
for their actions during pregnancy.

In other states laws designed to protect chi[/size]ldren against the damaging effects of drugs have similarly been twisted to punish childbearers.[/color]

Edited by user 14 years ago | Reason: Not specified

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HockeyDad
Herf-A-Holic

14 years ago

FETUS OUTRAGE!

ZRX1200
Herf-A-Holic

14 years ago

WHO WILL PROTECT THE ANTS?!!

Nicar
Herf-A-Holic

14 years ago

DOUBLE POST OUTRAGE!!!!

Nicar
Herf-A-Holic

14 years ago

WHO WILL PROTECT THE ANTS?!!

ZRX1200 wrote:

BAN INSECT KILLERS!!!! They can kill larvae!!!!!

ZRX1200
Herf-A-Holic

14 years ago

I bet Rick is a red ant. They hate black ants.

dubleuhb
Herf-A-Holic

14 years ago

Huh, I don't see a problem with making people accountable for their actions.

HockeyDad
Herf-A-Holic

14 years ago

Ever since we started asking expecting mothers to take prenatal vitamins, it has been a slippery slope of a loss of rights from mothers as fetuses grew more politically powerful and consolidated their influence.

ZRX1200
Herf-A-Holic

14 years ago

At what stage is a larvae a baby ant???

chiefburg
Herf-A-Holic

14 years ago

#10

"When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit –
though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do
with the baby's death – they charged her with the "depraved-heart
murder" of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence."

So, doing cocaine is okay and has no side affects that may cause a mother to abort.......

Let's not forget, cigarettes are safe and there are no medical related issues either.....

Rick: Seems like her drug use caused the death of the child. Negligent homicide is a more realistic charge than "deparved-heart murder." And, we've yet to see if it will stick.

FuzzNJ
Herf-A-Holic

14 years ago

#11

chiefburg wrote:

Your second hand smoke causes damage to those around you. Someone around you gets cancer, you can be blamed.

I find that last paragraph stupid, but that's down the road too.

Brewha
Herf-A-Holic

14 years ago

#12

And speaking of ants.

If the Mother Mary had a sister would you call her Aunty-Christ?

tailgater
Herf-A-Holic

14 years ago

#13

We need more laws to protect our drug addicted expecting mothers!!

Where's Planned Parenthood when you need them?
They would have made sure that the baby, er fetus was good-n-dead way before the cocaine did its job.

Then this fine, upstanding drug addict womb-without-a-clue could go on with her life without those maniac pro-lifers chasing her around and wanting to save her unborn child.

Rick is right, er correct.
It is insane.

wheelrite
Herf-A-Holic

14 years ago

#14

Rick has finally lost it...

Papachristou
Aficionado

14 years ago

#15

last time i checked, snorting coke while you are pregnant is slightly likely to harm the baby. but hey, im not doctor.

Brewha
Herf-A-Holic

14 years ago

#16

Where's Planned Parenthood when you need them?

tailgater wrote:

The conservatives are getting rid of planned patent hood and trying to end birth control so that we can have lots of unwanted children in society. Children that they won’t have any charity or compassion for, as those kids need to put themselves up by their boot straps.

- And they will tell any lie to make it happen, cause it is the will of their God.