Idaho Woman Challenges State’s Anti-Abortion Laws
Posted: August 31, 2011 Filed under: abortion rights, PLUB Pro-Life-Until-Birth, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, U.S. Politics, Women's Rights | Tags: abortion, fetus fetishists, Idaho, Jennie Linn McCormack, Nebraska "fetal pain" law 5 Comments
Remember Jennie Lin McCormack of Pocotello, Idaho, who was prosecuted for inducing her own abortion a few months ago? The case was later dropped for lack of evidence, but McCormack has now filed a lawsuit challenging Idaho’s 1972 law that makes it a crime for a woman to terminate her own pregnancy, as well as a new “fetal pain” law that bans abortions after 20 weeks, according to Reuters.
The lawsuit is believed to be the first federal court case against any of several late-term abortion bans enacted in Idaho and four other states during the past year, based on controversial medical research suggesting a fetus feels pain starting at 20 weeks of development.
Modeled after a 2010 Nebraska “fetal pain” law yet to be challenged, similar measures were considered in at least 16 states this year as anti-abortion groups made good on sweeping Republican gains from last year’s elections.
When McCormack realized she was pregnant in 2010, she was desperate to have an abortion. She already had three children and could not afford to support another on her tiny income of $200-$250 per month. But she couldn’t afford a surgical abortion either, so she asked her sister to order some pills on line that would help induce abortion. A woman named Brenda Carnahan, the fetus fetishist sister of one of McCormack’s friends turned her in to police.
More from Reuters:
The 1972 Idaho law discriminates against McCormack and other women of limited means in southeastern Idaho, which lacks any abortion providers, by forcing them to seek more costly surgical abortions far from home, the lawsuit says.
The newly enacted Idaho law banning late-term abortions was not yet in effect when McCormack terminated her own pregnancy using abortion pills she obtained from an online distributor at between 20 and 21 weeks of gestation on December 24, 2010, according to her lawyer, Richard Hearn.
But Hearn, also a physician, argues that both the 1972 law and the newly enacted Idaho statute pose other unconstitutional barriers to abortion. He cited, for example, the failure to exempt third-trimester pregnancies (25 weeks or more) in cases where a woman’s health, not just her life, is at risk.
This is obviously a very important case for women to keep an eye on. Someone needs to challenge the slew of new state laws that have sprung up since the 2010 midterm elections.
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I’m glad some one is taking these laws to court. I, for one, do not want to be a slave to someone else’s religious superstitions.
The article says the lawyer is also a doctor, so maybe this is a cause of his.
Good that someone is challenging this, let’s see if it goes anywhere.
This needs to be blogged far and wide.
Ron Paul as Prez would go after all women — and use the full force of the Government to enslave women. He is absolutely anti abortion and says this is the most important issue.
Women are most certainly woman worst enemies!!! It was another woman who turned her in (plus blabber mouth sister who told this woman).
I was surprised when I heard Ron Paul say that abortion was his number one issue. When he ran four years ago, he and his supporters spoke almost exclusively about the economy and Paul’s opposition to foreign wars and deployment of troops. It’s very telling that he’s sucking up, so blatantly, to the anti-abortion crowd just four years later.