I feel the need to add something...

something about feelings. (Guy, you have permission to skip over this post. In fact, as this post will advocate giving government services to an individual, you're encouraged to skip this post, so we can continue going out.)

I can't gloss over that in the entry above, there wasn't just an attempted abortion; a child was born and died. I feel that I can't really be as honest with myself as I'd like to be if I didn't talk about that for a bit. Being pro-choice isn't being pro-death; it's sad, tragic, even that a baby endured four days of suffering, and finally died.

I even sympathize a little bit with people who want to find someone responsible, and just...DO something. I can understand that it's possible that at the root of this prosecution is not anti-roe sentiment, but some idea that the preventable death of a child should not be ignored.

However, prosecution is not the way to mark this death. A woman doesn't just choose, after 24 weeks of pregnancy (which is a lot, maybe- I'm not up on teh gravidity-ology), to attempt to abort, on her own, without medical advise. There must be desperation. And it's that desperation that caused the death here. The woman (I keep wanting to say the girl- She's 18) must have been terrified of something; of childbirth, of someone discovering she was pregnant (likely- with the name and the city, I bet she's Catholic, and possibly first-generation American). She probably had no pre-natal care, didn't know if she could get an abortion before it was too late. If there had been any service, any intervention, anything available to her, this would not have happened. She must have felt, every day of that pregnancy, that her world was about to end.

I would have.

Prosecuting her serves no purpose, but to satisify those who feel that "something should be done." Something should be done. And that something should ensure that all women of reproductive age, in this country, have knowledge about and access to abortion, contraception, and pre-natal care.

(See, guy, and I didn't even say "free" or "affordable", even though I believe "free" or at least "affordable." Out of deference to your political viewpoint, such as it is.)