Abortion Laws Are Already A Punishment For Many Women
In the fiery abortion debate, one worrying fact that has been overlooked is that women who are forced to gear up for abortions need to face punishments in various conservative states.
MSNBC's Irin Carmon said that "women are already being prosecuted and even convicted on suspicion of having abortions." For instance, an Indiana woman "is appealing a 30-year prison sentence for her conviction for feticide" because she had reportedly "ordered abortion pills online."
Another Pennsylvania's Jennifer Whalen was imprisoned in 2014 for seeking medication for her 16-year-old daughter, as the closest abortion provider was situated 75 miles further. As the state mandated that there should be a whole day's waiting period between the "first counseling visit and the procedure", it would have made Whalen and her daughter finish two trips or stay overnight in the family's only car, which Whalen used to commute with her husband to go to work.
In 2011, at Idaho, Jennie Linn McCormack was arrested for trying to get aborted, which was a crime that might have invited penalty of up to five years in jail. Later, the charges had to be dropped as there was not enough evidence. But the case led to Idaho's self-induced abortion statute being ruled unconstitutional.
The Guttmacher Institute's Senior State Issues Associate Elizabeth Nash explained that seven American states have banned some or many self-induced abortions. Delaware, Nevada, South Carolina, and Utah do not permit self-induced abortions while Kentucky, New York, and Oklahoma allow self-induced abortions under some limited factors.
Hence, it is clear that many women are "already being punished" for not being able to overcome the multiple obstacles that prevent them from getting access to abortion opportunities in conservative states.
