In New York City, a woman named Yaribely Almonte is being held for a first degree crime- “Self Abortion.”  She says she drank an herbal tea before delivering her stillborn child prematurely- at 24wks gestational age.  The fetus was found in the building’s dumpster.

She has another child, who presumably is in protective services while she herself is in jail.  The evidence against her is entirely circumstantial, and irrelevant.  What is more important is that after allegedly exercising her right for an abortion, she is being imprisoned.  Only a few people have ever been arrested under this NYC statute.

This is an alarming and growing trend.  In Idaho, Jennie McCormack was arrested for the same crime after purchasing abortifacients last year, although she was released due to a similar lack of evidence.

Even more sinister, a woman in Indiana named Bei Bei Shuai has been being held without bail for nine months for fetuscide.  At 31 weeks pregnant, suffering from severe depression, Ms. Shuai attempted suicide by swallowing rat poison.  At the hospital, her life was saved.  However, while there she delivered her premature baby who died several days later.

This sets the precedent that any time a pregnant woman engages in potentially unsafe activity for her fetus, she could essentially be charged with murder.  And worse, that any time a woman miscarries under “suspicious circumstances” that she could be charged likewise.  It turn a need for compassion during the most painful moments of one’s life into a first degree crime.

Women who miscarry, and even those who do so intentionally, are not criminals.  They are victims.  The only crime committed here is by a set of laws that seek to turn a pregnant woman from a human being to an incubator- pure and simple.