I'm just going to post the first part of this article with these words: Love the sinner hate the sin. I forgive the woman but I do not and will not condone her actions. To top it off I can't believe the courts ruled this way!!
Oct. 19, 2006 — A Virginia judge has dismissed charges today against a young woman who shot herself in order to kill her unborn child in a case that has angered anti-abortion activists.
Tammy Skinner was a poor, desperate 22-year-old with two young children and another one on the way.
* Related: Was Killing Her Own Fetus a Criminal Act?
She said her boyfriend wouldn't pay for an abortion, so she carried her pregnancy to term.
Then she did the unthinkable.
Prosecutors say that on the morning she was scheduled to give birth, Skinner drove to an auto dealer's parking lot, took a gun, and shot herself in the belly, killing the fetus in an act of self-abortion. Skinner was charged with carrying out an illegal abortion.
Is Skinner a criminal?
Today, a Virginia judge said no. The charges were dropped, her case dismissed.
Should he have ruled otherwise?
The law in question states that it is illegal to administer or cause an illegal abortion on an expectant mother.
But Skinner's defense lawyer, Kevin Martingayle, argued that the law did not make it a crime for a mother to cause her own abortion. Ultimately, that argument convinced Circuit Court Judge W. R. Carter.
If someone else had pulled the trigger, he or she would be criminally accountable. Because it was the pregnant woman herself, no crime was committed, the court ruled.
But the Commonwealth of Virginia filed a direct indictment against Skinner, putting her case back in the courtroom.
Skinner's case has legal analysts scratching their heads and anti-abortion activists pounding their fists.
To those activists, this is an unequivocal case of murder coupled with a failure of the courts to catch it.
Link
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Judge Dismisses Charges Against Woman Who Killed Her Unborn Child
2 comments:
A child was murdered and the gun was in the mother's hand. She commited a crime, period.
I agree, Thomas, I trully do! I hope there is some form of judicial misconduct they can stand on to get a retrial. This ruling is absurd!
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