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

stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to News@lemmy.world – 294 points – US mother sentenced to two years in prison for giving daughter abortion pills
theguardian.com

Jessica Burgess pleaded guilty in July to providing an abortion after 20 weeks and tampering with human remains

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Medically speaking, the mom still did wrong because abortion pills have to be prescribed by a doctor, as her daughter could have also died from the abortion if there had been an infection or complications, but it sucks that she had to do that because the government has fucked the situation for women.

Abortion after 20 weeks sounds kinda extreme though. Most countries stop at 15.

Hmm...I wonder why it happened so late? I'm sure it couldn't be that they were completely restricted from being able to access those services earlier in the pregnancy when it would have been better, easier, and safer. I'm sure they just overlooked those conveniently available, necessary medical abortion services that are so easy to find in Oklahoma.

Wait...

I just checked planned parenthood in my province (of Canada) and they typically offer services for medical (pill) abortion up to 11 weeks GA (gestation age) and surgical abortion up to 25 weeks GA.

It does, that's five months, but it may well be because she didn't have access before that point, which is obviously horrific.

That would be horrific but a lot of people here are assuming.

And that’s not much of an excuse. Should we allow her to do a 9 month abortion because she couldn’t get around to it earlier? No.

Considering the article states that she didn’t have enough money to have a funeral for the fetus, I don’t think she had the means to raise a child. It’s impossible to “get around to” doing something that isn’t offered easily and affordably. I don’t think giving her child abortion pills when she was over 20 weeks pregnant was her first choice, I think it was a move of desperation.

Who the hell has a funeral for an abortion?

From the article: “her family could not have afforded a funeral for fetal remains, according to Courthouse News. (In a financial affidavit obtained by Vice, Jessica Burgess said she had $400 to her name.)”

I understand she can't afford it, but who even considers having a funeral for an abortion? That's fucking weird

People can’t afford to care for newborns either, doesn’t give you the right to kill them.

It shouldn’t have come to that, of course, but the court heard her defense and rejected it.

You are ignoring a fuck ton about that 15 weeks. The measurement of weeks is different in those countries. I the US we count from the last period which is different than most other countries which is closer to 17 weeks here in the US. It is also much easier to get an abortion on those countries since you can just go to damn near any hospital and have it done for no charge. It's also not like that 15 weeks is a hard line in most of those countries either. It is very easy to get exceptions.

There is no comparison and just stating the difference in weeks is horribly ignorant.

You get downvoted hard, but I'm not sure why. I think we all agree that putting someone into prison for an abortion is controversial at best. However, 20 weeks into pregnancy... that's only 2 weeks before it's considered to have a chance of survival at a premature birth.

At one point does it become murder? What if you kill your child right after a premature birth? I'm sure we all agree that's bad. So it's okay to kill the child if it's inside the womb, but not once it gets out? You have to put a limit somewhere, and you have to enforce that limit or you might as well not set it.

Again, I'm not against abortions, but 20 weeks... man... that's rough.

So it’s okay to kill the child if it’s inside the womb, but not once it gets out?

You nailed it. It's not a child when it's inside the woman, so it's not murder. Women get to decide what they do with their own body. I don't know why that's so goddamn difficult.

That's quite an extreme position. Saying "my body, my choice to kill this thing that will be born tomorrow" is very weird.

Give me your kidney. I need it to live so you have to.

No? I can't force you to use your body to keep mine alive?

Then why do the same to women? Because we want to imagine some "responsibility" for "their actions". And as soon as rape and coercion never happen we can have that conversation. Until then, let's leave it to the ladies to decide what they do with their organs.

You say "would be alive tomorrow", but that's false. They do not, ever, abort something that is completely viable outside the womb. The process for aborting that late is basically induction, and when you do that, now you have a living baby that you can't murder.

Read what the person who I replied to said. They said as long as the baby is in the womb, it's ok to kill it. Hence, they believe it's ok to kill a baby that would be born the next day. Unless I'm misunderstanding something.

It's the only morally justified position. There's no arbitrary point in time when a person should lose control of their body and be forced to undergo a potentially life-risking event. It's their body and you have no business telling them what they can do with it.

Unfortunately, you're on an ultra left site, so everything gets filtered through that lens.

Ultra left? Woo boy do you need to talk to more people. This place is center left at best. Plenty of capitalists wandering around.

I consider communism = good, corporations = bad, & pro-censorship to be pretty far left. If that isn't, I'd love to know what is considered left here.

Who is pro-censorship? I haven't seen that at all on here. In fact, the moderation tools are so bad a lot of hate gets left up until it gets reported a ton. Always with the pathetic victim complex.

Yep. And that's like 30% of what I see on Lemmy. So to call it a far left site seems odd.

But I guess YMMV depending on what instance you're on.

Twenty weeks is a whole half of a month to a full month before it considered to have a CHANCE of survival, and a premature birth at 5 months, is only survivable with extraordinary medical interventions and is likely to result in Life long complications.

At what point does it become murder? When it's completely viable, and not a second before.

No one has an abortion at 20 weeks for any reason but a good one. When you had your abortion, what reason did you have?

Uhhhhh it's still a nonviable fetus. And 22 week preemies don't have great outcomes either - 30% survival rate and severe health complications.

Let's ignore this case for a moment due to how problematic it is (no doctor consulted for her, done at 28 weeks, burning the stillborn, etc). 20 weeks is not rough. The chance of survival at 22 weeks is about 15% and most of those will have a hard road ahead if they even make it past the first year.

At what point it is okay for the abortion should be figured out between the woman and her doctor, not you or me. Your other questions are not worth responding to since that answer takes care of all of them.

"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."

Not just 20 weeks, but "well past" the bar that was 20 weeks. However you look at it, this was a pretty grim situation.