Nebraska US mother sentenced to two years in prison for giving daughter abortion pills

Marxism-Fennekinism@lemmy.ml to News@lemmy.world – 316 points –
US mother sentenced to two years in prison for giving daughter abortion pills
theguardian.com
86

Weird. I keep hearing the deranged nuts saying it's murder. Are they OK with 2 years for murder? Why are they so easy on criminals?

Our do they subconsciously know it's not actually murder?

These religious nuts forget it's condoned in the Bible too.

There's a part of the Bible that talks about swelling the belly that can be considered vague enough to ignore. Although I think it's pretty obvious what it's talking about.

But the Bible is 100% crystal clear about fetuses being property and absolutely not a living human. In fact, I think it's a bit extreme in that it says if you cause a miscarriage you just have to pay a fine.

Depends on the version. Some versions of Numbers 5:11-31 mention the bitter drink causing a miscarriage if the wife is unfaithful.

Its still a normal murder sentence, they're just planning on aborting it before term.

I'm pro abortion but 20 weeks seems like it's pushing that line for acceptable.

Article:

According to prosecutors, after the pair bought pills to end the pregnancy, Celeste Burgess gave birth to a stillborn fetus. At the time, Nebraska law banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Celeste Burgess’s pregnancy was well past that point, according to court records.

Police say that the Burgesses buried the fetal remains. An examination of the remains suggested they may have also been burned, according to court documents.

Did you also miss the part about her being a teenager? Mental health issues? Only $400 to her name? You would sentence her and the fetus to an extremely difficult life. If you advocate adoption, you probably don't understand the physical toll of carrying a fetus to term. So you'd be sentencing a teenager to undergo that still.

Pro abortion is a terrible way to frame that position. No one is advocating for more abortions. We are advocating for that option to be legally available alongside a multitude of support and educational routes to help people be fully informed as well as have access to proper birth control and medical care.

I'm advocating for abortions that make sense, i meant pro choice but pro abortion is fine too. As long as it doesn't endanger the mother.

I'm an advocate for adoption, I'm adopted. All of that fucking sucks right? Not having money, chance for issues because of a young mother, mental health issues. Who doesn't have mental health issues these days? Why wait 4-5 months? There are agencies that help people go across state lines to get abortions.

I have not given birth or been on the receiving end of investigations like this. But you are telling me going through 4-5 more months of carrying the baby to term would do more harm to this young lady than the invesigation process, wondering if you will get caught, getting caught, and then 90 days in jail would be better for her?

I think this whole thing is a shit situation and I'm sad to see them get sent to jail for something they could do legally in another state but endangering herself would not be what i would have done personally.

She is a teenager but she is 19, not 13/14/15. She is an adult

I have not given birth or been on the receiving end of investigations like this. But you are telling me going through 4-5 more months of carrying the baby to term would do more harm to this young lady than the invesigation process, wondering if you will get caught, getting caught, and then 90 days in jail would be better for her?

That's her choice to make. Birth is a traumatic event (for all women) carrying a chance of death and long-term damage to their body. It's not important what you think is easier or what you accept, it's her body and should be her choice.

Fair, i mean to some extent right. But an abortion on a fetus that is 9 months along would be to late right? Or not? If there is no harm to the baby or mother, how far along in your opinion is to far for an abortion?

I'm pro choice within reason. Pro lgbtq+ within reason. You enjoy your life just don't touch my butt.

But an abortion on a fetus that is 9 months along would be to late right? Or not? If there is no harm to the baby or mother, how far along in your opinion is to far for an abortion?

"Do women have bodily autonomy?" is a yes or no question. Does the state have a right to forced organ donation? No. And that's for fully formed people with experiences and relationships.

I’m pro choice within reason. Pro lgbtq+ within reason. You enjoy your life just don’t touch my butt.

This doesn't really sound like you are as much those things as you'd like to believe. You don't need to support a woman's right to choose "but" or associate sexual assault with LGBTQ+ rights.

We are a culture steeped in conservative influence campaigns with insufficient pushback from liberals so we develop these framings of topics that have intentionally twisted muich easier questions. Pro choice means pro choice and LGBTQ+ rights do not cause sexual assault.

Do women have bodily autonomy? No. My mom should not be able to go and hurt herself too the point of being hospitalized/instatutionalized. So no blanket body autonomy. At some point people that know more about the subject than me should step in for the health of those involved.

That is the same thing for abortion. As long as the health of everyone involved is taken into consideration that is all i care about. The tricky question is when is the fetus considered a person? I don't have an answer to that.

The "dont touch my butt" statement is a joke. You/they live their lives how they want. Just don't infringe upon my life and my rights aka "dont touch my butt". You want to go march at a gay parade? Sure. I've joined one in California. I've lived with lesbians, very good friends, fell out of touch recently thanks for reminding me to reach out.

Edit: and if you read my comments, never once have i said she should not have gotten an abortion. I just asked questions and expressed my reservations

Do women have bodily autonomy? No. My mom should not be able to go and hurt herself too the point of being hospitalized/instatutionalized.

This is an absurd dodge. Do women, in full possession of their faculties and well informed about their options, have bodily autonomy? Accepting that this case may not have involved well-informed medical decisions.

As long as the health of everyone involved is taken into consideration that is all i care about. The tricky question is when is the fetus considered a person?

This is a long way to say "no". Do you support forced organ donation? You don't have an answer for when fetuses are people, but people certainly are people.

The “dont touch my butt” statement is a joke. You/they live their lives how they want. Just don’t infringe upon my life and my rights aka “dont touch my butt”.

So then what is your "within reason" for LGBTQ+ rights then? Because you put your joke about sexual assault is in the same place you put your sincere belief about abortion. And what's the actual joke, because "it's just a joke" requires there to be humor involved. Explain the joke to me.

It wasn't a dodge it got my point across. "Do women, in full possession of their faculties and well informed about their options, have bodily autonomy?"

Yes they do.

You will have to excuse me, i do not understand your meaning behind "forced organ donation" in this context, could you explain that?

I believe i already started my within reason for lgbtq+ rights. I support them until they infringe upon my rights. The same as how i support other religions/races/genders/little people i support their causes as long as they don't infringe upon my rights.

As for explain the joke, no, I'm not going to. You may not find it humerous and maybe it's just not a great translation to text.

You may believe i don't support these causes, and that is your right, i do believe i support them and agree with them within reason and that is my right.

It wasn’t a dodge it got my point across. “Do women, in full possession of their faculties and well informed about their options, have bodily autonomy?”

Then it shouldn't matter how far along the pregnancy is, because any rule where you say "you can't remove this from your body in the safest way possible" is infringing on that.

You will have to excuse me, i do not understand your meaning behind “forced organ donation” in this context, could you explain that?

If someone needs a kidney and you are match for them, would you support the government forcing you to donate one of yours?

"you can't remove this from your body in the safest way possible" is infringing on that.

Ahh so in my opinion, that is the crux of our different stances. I have the belief that everyone has their rights until it infringes upon my rights or the rights of others. To me, in my opinion, at some point that fetus becomes a child/person and has rights of its own, now i don't know when that is i would say 3rd trimester maybe? again in my opinion. So unless there is danger to the mother or child eventually at some point the mother should bring the child to term. I think if you hit that 7th month you should know if you want to keep the baby and bring it to term. Whether you give the child up for adoption or raise it yourself is another matter entirely.

If someone needs a kidney and you are match for them, would you support the government forcing you to donate one of yours?

No, now what does that have to do with this?

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I'm advocating for abortions that make sense

That's not up to you to decide. That's a decision to be made between a doctor and patient privately.

The rest of your comment is just special pleading to placate your delicate and ill placed sensibilities. That is a healthcare decision, the same as anything else you'd go to a doctor for. You not agreeing with someone else's decision is your problem and yours alone.

I didn't say the abortions needed to make sense to me, they need to make sense to the people involved. Will i have an opinion on the matter sure. Does my opinion matter? No. If i disagree i will vote to put people into office that will hopefully vote the way i want on things. If more people vote the other way and my guy/gal doesn't win? That sucks try again another time.

And fuck my delicate ill placed sensibilities. I'm just here having a conversation. Expressing my thoughts, opinions, in a hopefully civil discourse.

I didn't say the abortions needed to make sense to me

Then why say it? Who else are you talking about and who decides what makes sense? Why would it have to make sense to anyone besides the doctor and patient?

If i disagree i will vote to put people into office that will hopefully vote the way i want on things.

And if some angry twat spouts lies like women are aborting at 9 months just for fun and that they'll stop that, whats to stop you from voting for an idiot like that because you both don't know what you're talking about?

You try very hard to defend a shitty position while not admitting you hold it. From your other comments you are fully buying into the bullshit propaganda about abortions. Then you take that misinformation to the voting booth. You claimed to have LGBT friends (while making a thinly veiled homophobic joke). Ask them for some information on abortions. Ask some women. Hell, ask a damn doctor.

It's OK to be wrong. It's OK to have fallen for some well dressed propaganda. Just learn from it and try to understand why that happened.

Why say what specifically?

As for who decides what makes sense, purple that are smarter than me, people that we vote into office, and hopefully the experts that we see when we go in for medical care.

And if some angry twat spouts lies like women are aborting at 9 months just for fun and that they'll stop that, whats to stop you from voting for an idiot like that because you both don't know what you're talking about?

Nothing is to stop me or anyone else from voting. Or should anyway. Nice job calling me an idiot i suppose. What specific position am i defending that has you do up in arms? What have i done other than mistakenly end my first comment in this thread with a period Instead of a question mark? I seriously want to know. As someone raised republican and now a Democrat, and a card carrying member of the church of satan, that donates to them every year, what position am i defending?

As for homophobic joke... I'm not a fan of women i don't know touching my butt, men i don't know touching my butt, or really anyone i don't know touching my butt.

When that teenage girl, i think of 14, from Ohio had to cross state lines to get an abortion because she was raped, i was appalled to hear of people saying "well there is no records of her being restored so obviously it's a political stunt".

Jesus fucking Christ people, put down your fucking pitch forks and try having a conversation with people. That's the only way you are going to change minds. Stop going to war and have civil discourse.

I know it's OK to be wrong, I've made many mistakes in life. But having my opinions on these matters is not one of them.

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20 weeks is not pushing anything especially in states where it is extremely difficult to get an abortion. Some states require multiple doctor visits which can mean multiple days off work. That is not an easy task for many who are living paycheck to paycheck.

Also, who the fuck calls themselves pro-abortion?

That said, I read that she was about 28 weeks along. At that point it is considered a stillborn and needs to be properly disposed of. Burning the body and burying it in a friend's yard does not fall under proper disposal.

Also, who the fuck calls themselves pro-abortion?

I do. I am also pro-angioplasty and pro- root canal. These are all great medical procedures, and while it's sad when an individual needs them, its great that they exist.

It's absolutely a poor way to label yourself and the far right latch onto that and use it to convince their base that all pro choice people want more abortions and want to force those abortions on others. While you may have your own definition, it will absolutely be taken and used against you by the far right especially when you make it easy for them.

It's a poor way to frame your position. It somewhat implies you want more of them to happen. Personally I'd prefer no abortions happen. Not because they're illegal, but because there's no need for the operation. I'd also prefer no need for angioplasty or root canals. Kinda like the idiots that call themselves "pro life" yet support the death penalty and think it needs to be used more.

I mean me, abortion is great if done correctly and doesn't endanger the mother.

I have no idea as a guy with no kids how far along 20 weeks is in the gestation cycle. Other than there are about 4.3 weeks in a month and that'll put them just under 5 months along? Seems pretty far along to me but again i don't know the process.

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This was before they changed the law to disallow abortions after 12 weeks. This also is not exactly a case abortion advocates want to fully stand behind. She was like 28 weeks along and the mother ordered the pills saying they were for herself. She coached the daughter on how to take them and the daughter was happy to take them saying shit like she could not wait to wear jeans again. They then burned the stillborn and buried it in a friend's yard. Most of the case is about improper disposal of a body.

I'm very pro-choice but the daughter should have been the one consulting a doctor to get the pills and they should have worked with the city/county to properly dispose of it.

This also is not exactly a case abortion advocates want to fully stand behind.

Fuck that. Women have bodily autonomy. Period. No "but", they just do. None of your things to consider matter at all except that a law which criminalizes women's bodily autonomy at 20 weeks forced them to take medical risks they shouldn't have had to take.

You won't ever get a majority of the population to agree to this view. If you hold staunchly that all the way up until 40 weeks women should be allowed to abort, you will lose at least 75% of the vote. At some point the fetus is developed enough we have to consider its life, regardless of its current location.

I think we could push viability as a compromise for everyone. That's around 21-24 weeks, depending on what is considered acceptable potential life chance. Conservatives will say that's too developed, some progressives will claim your view, but I think most would at least compromise that if we could safely take the baby out, that should be the legal option at that point. That also gives the mother a lot of time to consider her options.

Many fatal fetal anomalies aren't detected until the scan done between 18-23 weeks. So that doesn't "give the mother a lot of time." Especially in states that add legal hoops for her to jump through, and where the nearest place to perform an abortion is several hundred miles away in another state. Usually in those cases she's forced to put the dying fetus through much more trauma, as well as the risk to her own health and life. You can tell yourself they'll make exceptions in those cases but the reality is they won't act until she's crashing from sepsis, because they fear (with good reason) being reported and arrested and losing their license.

"Do women have bodily autonomy" is a yes or no question. You're implicitly adopting the framing that says "no, they don't", which is why you think there's some need to compromise to be moderate.

The answer to "do you have the right to withhold your labor" isn't "not if it's only for a few months", it's "yes".

Women can end pregnancies without abortion. Just like America can have "territorial integrity" without putting floating barbed-wire meshes in the Rio Grand.

At six months were talking about more than a fetus. Baby has lungs, eyes that move around, and they listen to sounds coming from outside the woman's body. But sure, let's just rip 'em out and flush them so she can fit in jeans again. Sorry, but it's a little fucked up.

And at six months a woman still has bodily autonomy. Period. End of story. That you think a more developed fetus means you can dictate what happens with someone else's body is what's fucked up.

Abortion at 6 months is something you aren't going to get a lot of agreement about. That shit was almost to the point it could of been born extremely premature. I think 28-30 weeks is the earliest babies have a decent shot at living.

You're just arguing with someone saying something that is definitely massively unpopular is. Personally, I don't give a fuck and think it's fine. If we went back to throwing deformed or unwanted babies into the local lake/off a cliff, also fine with me. I don't generally get mad at the fact that people wouldn't approve of that.

Technology is improving the premie survival rate all the time. If we can pull an embryo and bring it to term after a week, should abortion be restricted similarly?

Some other criteria is necessary.

I think in the last like 15 years we have gone from 22 weeks to like, 21 weeks and 3 days as the record.

A week is silly. Most women don't even know they are pregnant until they miss their period. Give that a week to be sure they missed it at that's already technically 5 weeks along.

If technology gets as good as you suggest, then we will have to reconsider everything. Governments would have to be willing to take all of them as wards of the state. Before that, we would have to make sure it was just as safe as an abortion. After that, we would have to consider if this mother has a right to not allow this lump or cells to not grow into a full grown human who has to grow up as a ward of the state.

Very complicated ethical mess. But I don't think technology will be there for 50+ years. I'm not sure America will even be here that long these days.

Governments would have to be willing to take all of them as wards of the state. Before that, we would have to make sure it was just as safe as an abortion. After that, we would have to consider if this mother has a right to not allow this lump or cells to not grow into a full grown human who has to grow up as a ward of the state.

All of these questions apply at 6 months or whatever arbitrary date you set. Birth is a more dangerous and damaging procedure than abortion. If forcing the test tube baby extraction could be disallowed for danger, why isn't forced birth?

Sorry, yeah, I realize I was proposing a reductio ad absurdum as a thought experiment. And yes, I do think that eventually they will get to that point, but my real point was that "time since conception" is not a great metric for a legal line to draw, it's merely a convenient one.

I think personally, as a cis white dude with no stake in the matter, if we had to draw a line for terminations without a specific reason, we should put it somewhere around 6 months with medical exceptions. Developmental problems often don't show up until fairly late, and I think that things like Down syndrome, major uncorrectable development abnormalities or genetic diseases or other quality-of-life issues are perfectly valid reasons for a pregnancy termination. But that's a huge mire to get sunk into and each additional rule would require debates.

Abortion at 6 months is something you aren't going to get a lot of agreement about.

Says who, you?

What does it matter if others don't agree, that doesn't change the argument.

The siren call of the "reasonable moderate" always substituting status quo opinion polling in place of moral arguments.

"Listen, most people don't support gay marriage, so you shouldn't say gay marriage should be legal."

What if the unborn is a girl? At 6 months, they deserve a say in their bodily autonomy. Why are you such a raging ageaphobe?

bodily autonomy

Take a look at that phrase. A fetus isn't capable of bodily autonomy because they require their mother's body in order to stand a chance of eventually existing (with bodily autonomy) in the world outside of it.

Which is precisely the fucking point.

Seems like a good trade off. 2 years in prison < 18 years in prison. Anyway, fuck Nebraska.

Let's not forget that this is because Meta gave away Facebook messages that they thought were private. Do not use Facebook messenger! Or SMS!!

Jeez, that should be the headline.

"Facebook exposes messages that land a mom in prison for giving her daughter abortion pills."

Never trust Facebook, get a real E2E messenger app like signal

E2E is not enough. You can still be subpoenaed for Signal messages if they aren't auto-deleted. Just ask all the folks involved in the trump indictments.

"Facebook exposes messages that land a mom in prison for giving her daughter health care treatment."

Pregnancy is a medical condition with possibly lethal health risks and abortion is a treatment for those that don't accept those risks.

Abortion is health care.

Eh. I don't see why we need to use vague terms when we could use specific ones.

Because people need to think of abortions access as health care. The same as cancer treatment, diagnosing illness, or getting stitches. And that starts with messaging.

Abortion is health care.

That's fine, but it seems disingenuous to use the general term 'health care' when you could be more specific with what that health care actually is.

I don't think it's disingenuous at all. It's treatment for a woman's health. Calling out people for disapproving of health care is half the point.

Abortion is health care.

Killing a 6 month premie isn't abortion though. That fetus' bodily autonomy was violated.

Agreed that abortion is Healthcare. There's also a tipping point where it's no longer a cluster of cells, right?

First off, when you say "isn't abortion" it kinda sounds like you're talking about mythical post-birth murder, which doesn't happen and would be illegal. Not sure if you're talking about that or not, but I thought I'd preface.

Aside from that, when it's "viable" it's usually just induced labor. If it's not induced, there's a reason why they have to take more extreme measures.

Aside from that, if you give an inch they take a mile. I would rather doctors and their patient be able to do what's best for the patient's health than to let the government interfere.

I mean, you literally said to call it by a general term to get people to think a certain way about it.

I feel like we should tell them the specific information and let them make their own decision instead of resorting to sly tricks like this.

It's not a trick. It's health care. People should think of it as health care because it is.

Abortion is health care.

Alright. I don't think you're going to see my point so I'll just duck out.

Have a nice day.

Does anyone have an article that describes point by point why Facebook is harmful? I'm having trouble getting my friends to switch to signal.

This is where the real injustice comes in.

Very interesting, though I wonder how much that would've actually changed ... anything?

I don't know if it would have change anything, but it did violate a legal right for a spurious reason and that is an injustice regardless of her sentence.

This headline is a bit misleading. She didn’t just help her daughter have an abortion, she helped her have a late-term abortion, and then burnt & buried the remains.

“According to prosecutors, after the pair bought pills to end the pregnancy, Celeste Burgess gave birth to a stillborn fetus. At the time, Nebraska law banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Celeste Burgess’s pregnancy was well past that point, according to court records.

Police say that the Burgesses buried the fetal remains. An examination of the remains suggested they may have also been burned, according to court documents.”

What a horrifying hellscape Nebraska must be for a mother and daughter to feel the need to go to such lengths for healthcare.

I really wish people would stop using the phrase "late term abortion". It's not a medical term. It's a political one designed demonize those who almost solely terminate for medical reasons.

How would you describe this then? She had an abortion well past the pre-roe cutoff of 20 weeks, which is where it starts to become possible for a fetus to survive outside the womb with substantial medical help. No where has it been mentioned that there may have been a medical reason for the abortion.

To be clear, I’m pro-choice. However, there does come a point in a pregnancy where it becomes morally wrong to terminate if there is no danger to either the mother or the fetus, or the fetus is unviable. Neither of those situations were present here, and she was “well past 20 weeks”, though it’s not listed just how far past she was. So what would you suggest would be the proper terminology here?

Edit: according to CNN, she was around 28 weeks, or 7 months pregnant.

She should cross the border into Colorado, Polis would shelter her