Mom Charged For Helping Daughter Obtain Illegal Abortion: Is This Our New Reality?

[demmiblue]

Source: Care2

Pennsylvania mother Jennifer Whalen is being charged with multiple crimes after allegedly purchasing drugs off the internet and giving them to her then 16-year-old pregnant daughter, who wanted an abortion. Whalen said she purchased the drugs after being unable to find a clinic close enough to have a legal abortion and not wanting to take her daughter out of state to obtain one (based on her location, the likely nearest clinic would have been in New York state).

Whalen has been charged with “felony count of medical consultation and judgment and misdemeanor charges of unlawful acts – not licensed as a pharmacist, endangering the welfare of a child and simple assault,” according to one news report. The charges themselves are horrifying — after all, helping your daughter end a pregnancy she doesn’t want surely isn’t “endangering the welfare of a child” or “simple assault” any more than forcing her to continue a pregnancy against her will would be. What is just as disturbing is the fact that the termination occurred in January of 2012, but the complaint wasn’t issued until December of 2013, nearly two years later.

<snip>

With clinics closing across the country, illegal medication abortions are and will continue to be a growing reality. This latest case is a red flag that anyone can be arrested as aiding a patient, regardless of age or relationship. That doesn’t mean less abortions. It just means that the practice will go further underground, making it more isolated for the person terminating the pregnancy and inevitably more dangerous as she grows even more fearful about bringing legal repercussions on herself and anyone who may find out about it.

This is the new post-Roe America, where abortion is legal in name for so many, regardless of what the courts say otherwise.

* emphasis mine

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/mom-charged-for-helping-daughter-obtain-illegal-abortion-is-this-our-new-reality.html