News @lemmy.world stopthatgirl7 @kbin.social 1 yr. ago

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

www.theguardian.com US mother sentenced to two years in prison for giving daughter abortion pills

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

46 comments

She's a political prisoner
- Also a victim of religiously motivated terrorism.
This is some dystopian shit.
- Under His Eye...
Absolutely ridiculous. Fuck Republicans.
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.
Did noone read tampering with human remains? Still screwed but not all deserved praise
- She tried to cremate the stillborn fetus, and when she realized it's not easy to do cremations at home, she buried it. What's the problem, other than she should have considered flushing it to reduce the risk of evidence? And yeah, she should have also done the abortion much earlier, as well as under the guidance of a doctor, but obviously that's difficult in many states.
  
  Oh I just read it I thought it was unrelated sorry I didn't read the article I thought tampered with a diffrent body
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...
- should be legal to yeet it and delete it
  
  That’s a Tshirt that needs to be made in support of women’s rights
  
  🤘
- 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.
- 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.
  
  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.

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