In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Clarification

Lauren

Amanda does a good job summing up the “Fetal Protection” case that so many of us feminist bloggers commented on this week:

It looks like there’s a very good chance that this homemade abortion was the last incident in a string of abusive encounters. The boy admitted to hitting the girl in the past to keep her from berating him, and the hospital report indicates that she was hit on the face and had a huge bruise on her arm from someone grabbing her. This casts doubt on her story that she wanted to abort the pregnancy so much as it was lost after her boyfriend beat her. The girl had, after all, been keeping up her doctor’s appointments.

From the affidavits, it looks like parental notification wasn’t an issue.

…This entire case is disturbing on a number of levels. First of all, it’s disturbing that it was so widely reported as a simple issue of two teenagers getting caught doing a homemade abortion, when it’s very likely that instead it was closer to the all-too-typical scenario of domestic violence escalating due to a pregnancy. But the prosecution carries a lot of the blame in that–instead of treating this incident for what it most likely was, which is a case of domestic violence leading to a miscarriage and prosecuting the young man for hurting his girlfriend, they grandstanded on the whole abortion bullshit instead of standing up for the young woman who was victimized in all this.

…This hyper-focus on the fetus turns the entire national discussion on how to handle the fact that domestic violence often escalates during pregnancy into a joke. Anti-choicers who exhibit more interest in fetuses than women may not intend it, but their attitude tacitly condones treating women like objects that can be mishandled by their partners–grab her, hit her on the arm, hit her on the face, but if you dare injure her fetus, off to jail with you!

We got some details wrong on this case, but I think the newest information makes this case far more troubling. First because many of us jumped so quickly to defend the boy and his actions, and second for the emotional appeals the boy’s defense made against the girl. Unfortunately, early reports did not mention the boy’s earlier abuse.

9 thoughts on Clarification

  1. First because many of us jumped so quickly to defend the boy and his actions,

    You man-hating feminists!

    and second for the emotional appeals the boy’s defense made against the girl.

    With more evidence – and none of us are one the jury here – it does in fact look like this guy’s a classic victim-blaming abuser, and the victim is, classically, backing him up. But, you know, innocent until proven guilty and all that. I don’t know that instinctively presuming the best of someone in a horrible situation is all that bad a trait. It’s not like anyone’s camped out outside the courthouse proclaiming his innocence.

  3. The point about abuse increasing during pregnancy is an important one. Pregnancy is a very dangerous time for women in abusive relationships. But when fetuses are victims of violence, the anti-choice crowd freaks out. They seem to ignore victims of “domestic” abuse at other times. The high profile Laci Petersen case could have been(in a totally different media world) an opportunity for a national discussion of why so many men freak out and kill or injure their pregnant partners. Instead, we saw very little of that and a whole lot of rhetoric and actual legislation designed to hurt people who hurt fetuses. Which, if the anti-choicers get their way, will include not just people who wanted their babies but people who didn’t want to be pregnant at all.

  4. Yeah. I feel conflicted; I snapped at Joseph in the comments threads earlier about his assumption that this was only about an abusive man, rather than a troubled couple, and it’s embarassing to admit he was right about that.

    Still, I find it deeply troubling that the heavy jail sentence is connected to the loss of two fetuses, rather than to the abuse and trauma suffered by the woman who was carrying them. Seems to me that any law that worked to defend women in general would also work to defend any embryos or fetuses they were pregnant with — at least, if they were wanted by the woman carrying them.

    That the laws are _not_ structured that way says that the issue is not about defending female citizens’ rights under the law, rights which currently include the right to terminate a pregnancy. Instead this seems like an end run around those rights, cloaked in the guise of “protecting women.”

  5. The boy was charged with murder for inducing the abortion of his girlfriend, right? The law said that anyone who killed fetuses in the course of committing a crime would be committing murder.

    The press was vague on what other crime the boy was supposed to have committed. Practicing medicine without a license? Assault? Reckless endangerment?

    Was the kid charged the kid with assault and therefore with murder? If so, the press should have made that clear from the outset. Of course, the girl was vigorously maintaining that she asked her boyfriend to induce the abortion. So, it’s understandable that her story got picked up at face value.

    Like Lauren and Amanda said, it’s very disturbing that the DA would let all this confusion ride. The goal was clearly to send the message that performing a consensual abortion could bring a murder beef in Texas.

  6. Like Lauren and Amanda said, it’s very disturbing that the DA would let all this confusion ride.

    Uh, the DA doesn’t control the media, even in Texas. As I said over on Pandagon, this was almost certainly a strategy decision by the prosecutor: charge the guy with assault and he maybe gets probation or a short jail sentence, charge him with killing two fetuses and the scumbag goes away for a long, long time.

  7. The DA controls a lot of the spin on the story. Besides, s/he has a responsibility as a public servant to give the public timely and accurate information about the workings of his or her office.

    I suspect that the DA wants the public to believe exactly what the progressive blogosphere concluded from preliminary reports.

    Of course, we all got angry, but the DA is playing to a different demographic–the fundies who are thrilled that something abortion-related is treated as murder.

    I still feel bad for both kids. The guy deserves to go to jail, but not for the rest of his life. I’d say 7-10 years would be a fair sentence for all the terrible stuff he’s done.

  8. It’s not likely that he thinks that hitting his old lady was wrong. And she defended him, so she figures that’s what happens in a normal relationship. I don’t mind seeing him go away so he can’t kill the next girl he knocks up. And maybe, with counseling, she’ll figure out why this was a bad relationship. That two babies died just adds to the tragedy.

  9. The DA controls a lot of the spin on the story. Besides, s/he has a responsibility as a public servant to give the public timely and accurate information about the workings of his or her office.

    The DA has a responsibility not to disclose trial strategy and fuck up his or her case. And they don’t control the spin the defense puts on the case.

Comments are currently closed.