By Lindsay Beyerstein, In These Times. Posted August 17, 2007.

Maryland’s Viable Fetus Act displays the coercive potential of legislation that gives fetuses rights at the expense of women.

Christy Lynn Freeman, a 37-year-old, Ocean City, Md., woman, was recently charged with murder after delivering a stillborn child under Maryland's as-yet-untested Viable Fetus Act of 2005.

Worcester County prosecutor Joel J. Todd charged Freeman with murder and a district court judge held her without bail for allegedly performing her own late-term abortion. Though these charges were eventually dropped, Freeman's case illustrates the coercive potential of legislation that gives fetuses rights at the expense of women.

Freeman arrived at Atlantic General Hospital by ambulance on July 26, bleeding profusely. She denied that she had ever been pregnant, but doctors found a placenta and an umbilical cord inside her body. Later, she admitted that she had given birth to a stillborn fetus at home.

After questioning Freeman at the hospital, police searched her home and found the recently stillborn infant and three older sets of fetal remains in and around her property.

The medical examiner's preliminary report confirmed Freeman's story that the 26-week-old fetus was born dead. Nevertheless, Freeman was charged with first- and second-degree murder and manslaughter for allegedly inducing the stillbirth.

Maryland's Viable Fetus Act provides for prosecution for the murder of a viable fetus if the perpetrator "intended to cause the death of the viable fetus, intended to cause serious physical injury to the viable fetus, or wantonly or recklessly disregarded the likelihood that the person's actions would cause the death of or serious physical injury to the viable fetus."

The prosecutor maintained that Freeman's self-abortion "wantonly or recklessly disregarded" the possibility that her actions would kill the fetus.

However, even if Freeman induced a self-abortion, the law explicitly exempts pregnant women who kill their own fetuses. "Nothing in this section applies to an act or failure to act of a pregnant woman with regard to her own fetus," the statute reads.

On July 31, the authorities announced that Freeman admitted to killing at least one live infant that she delivered in secret several years ago.

Prosecutors dismissed the murder charges for the stillbirth on August 2. She is now facing ordinary murder charges for killing a live infant. Although prosecutor Joel Todd told reporters that Freeman was being charged for killing an infant born alive in 2003, the charging document says that the infant died in 2004. (Todd's spokesperson could not be reached for comment.)

Thirty-six states have some kind of fetal homicide law on the books. While Maryland's law applies only to viable fetuses, at least 15 states extend fetal homicide protection from conception. In state legislatures around the country, anti-abortionists have fought for laws that recognize the killing of fetuses as criminal acts on the grounds that full-fledged personhood begins in utero.

Freeman isn't the only woman to face murder charges for a pregnancy loss. Theresa Lee Hernandez of Oklahoma has spent the last three years in jail awaiting trial for "murder" after a late-term pregnancy loss. Her son was stillborn at 32 weeks gestation. When the son tested positive for methamphetamine, Hernandez was charged with murder.

In June, National Advocates for Pregnant Women sent an open letter to Oklahoma District Attorney David Prater, urging him to drop the charges against Hernandez. Signatories included the Oklahoma State Medical Association and the America Public Health Association. Prater issued a statement that he had no intention of dropping the charges.

In the wake of the Freeman case, some abortion foes are calling for Maryland to eliminate the maternal exemption. An editorial in the August 7 Washington Times lamented the Maryland law's exclusion for pregnant women as evidence of the "lock of abortionism on American government and a reflection of the continued unprotection of the unborn."

It would have been fitting if Christy Freeman's case had been the first legal test of the Viable Fetus Act. Proponents of the legislation insist that these bills protect women from abuse, rather than restrict access to abortion. Yet, Freeman's case shows how prosecutors can use such laws to punish a "misbehaving" pregnant woman and criminalize a kind of abortion in the process.

__________________
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. United State Constitution, Art. I Sec. 9 Par. 2

"Dissent is the Highest form of Patriotism" -- Howard Zinn

Excerpt from above....
and three older sets of fetal remains in and around her property....


Well I'm not sure what to make of this, but I certainly find it a bit disturbing....not to mention creepy!
I was totally pro choice until a few years ago....now I am much more ambivalent.....hmmmmm, I honestly don't know what to make of this!

I must ponder this further

__________________
If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.
~ Frank Zappa ~

Liberty means responsibility, that is why most men dread it.
~George Bernard Shaw~

Personally I don't think we need to overturn Roe vs Wade as it would make women go back to back ally abortionist.
Although I do not agree with abortion, (I think it's murder) it is the law of the land and think it should remain in place

__________________
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. United State Constitution, Art. I Sec. 9 Par. 2

"Dissent is the Highest form of Patriotism" -- Howard Zinn

Are they fucking serious? That is called miscarrieage is it not? Maybe not the part about her not telling and leaving the fetus behind and the other older fetus they found (what's up with that?) but they can charge her for having a miscarrieage can they?
Wow this is messed up!

__________________
Chiceh
Peace, Love & Weed

There are still born births all the time and that's not murder. But when a mother intentionally aborts her child, and the child dies, I believe that would be murder. It would be up to the state to prove intent. We cannot allow humans, of whatever age to be discarded into trash cans. That does nothing but denigrate the species to the level of insects.

It is my belief that there is no "right to privacy" in the Constitution as it pertains to abortion, but there IS the 10th Amendment to the Constitution which states the following:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the People."

Therefore, the abortion issue should be state law and not federal.

Vi

__________________
Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

I think women should be in charge of their own bodies and also be the ones making laws pertaining to abortion, not a bunch of pious old men.

__________________
Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

I agree, if the mother knowingly aborts her baby, then she should be punished. But babies that are stillborn, they mother should not suffer even more. Sometimes there is no reason for still borns, it just happens.

__________________
Chiceh
Peace, Love & Weed

Nice comment, Med. But ... its right out of the abortionist's and the Nazi population controller's hand books.

If what you say is true, then should it be up to the offspring to decide when to "abort" their "inconvenient" elderly parents? Or, should we leave that up to the federal courts?

Vi

__________________
Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

Maybe so Vi, but the Federal Government stuck their nose in to it back in the early 1970's and it is now the law of the land, like it or not, the Federal government only puts laws on the books, they don't repeal them. (not since they overturned Alcohol Prohibition) And the Supreme Court wrote their decision on Roe vs. Wade with a woman's basic right to privacy in mind. I believe that they were correcting a mistake that our founding fathers made as far as privacy matters are concerned. The only reason the Government even brings up abortion is because they want to pull something and they don't want us (the voters) to notice.

__________________
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. United State Constitution, Art. I Sec. 9 Par. 2

"Dissent is the Highest form of Patriotism" -- Howard Zinn

You are so full of Poop. Here's one for you. who do you think makes the decision to circumcise the newborns? 95% or more of the time it's the mother. A female making a major desision about the males genitalia. I wish I could have made that decision for myself, but my mother decided to lop off the first inch of penal sensitivity. I've read that men that are not circumcised have 20% greater feeling in their penisis. Hey, what I've had was great, but I'd take another 20%. So how do you feel about that?

__________________
Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.