Here in Tidewater, Virginia we had a horrible crime committed a few weeks ago. A woman who was 9 months pregnant was found in a car dealer's parking lot with a gunshot wound to her abdomen. She was rushed to the nearest trauma center but her baby died. She was due to give birth that day.
As police tried to find the shooter, her story started to fall apart. Eventually, she confessed to shooting herself. It was interesting to see local columnist, Tamara Dietrich condemn the act while trying to keep her pro-abortion credentials intact. Her column was called "Justice Cried." I can't get it online anymore. The other newspaper in the area, The Virginian Pilot, doesn't seem to have editorialized on the matter.
Now the Commonwealth's Attorney is having a hard time finding any crime to charge her with. The only thing they've been able to come up with is illegally inducing an abortion, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and filing a false police report. She can't be charged with killing a fetus because the code outlaws killing the "fetus of another." I am just dumbfounded that the Code of Virginia has such a glaring gap and this woman may just get off scott free. That's what she's counting on, when interviewed on TV she said that she's "been punished enough."
I wonder how Chad Dotson would prosecute this case.
Links,
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=100336&ran=212974
http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-87065sy0mar16,0,3705573.story (second letter)
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=100614&ran=69553
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-81182sy0mar12,1,1638004.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=tammy+skinner&btnG=Search+News
Submitted to the Virginia Blog Carnival
2 comments:
Good question. Fortunately, I haven't been faced with that dilemma. You've got me thinking, though.
At the risk of looking like I have "liberal" tattooed across my forehead, I am left wondering why she did it rather than worrying about the positioning and posturing of the legal eagles. No slam to them or their profession but if abortion is legal what is the issue here? I guess I am hard pressed to understand why someone would inflict the pain and horror and potential death in doing something like this rather than going to the local abortion clinic. At some point she clearly wanted this baby because she kept the pregnancy? At the same time, can anyone who does something like this be anything but mentally unstable? At minimum couldn't she be charged with performing a third trimester abortion?
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