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Nebraska US mother sentenced to two years in prison for giving daughter abortion pills
(www.theguardian.com)
Disgusting law. Who does this help? No one.
this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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United States | News & Politics
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Jessica Burgess, a Nebraska mother accused of helping her teenage daughter use pills to end her pregnancy, was sentenced on Friday to two years in prison.
According to prosecutors, after the pair bought pills to end the pregnancy, Celeste Burgess gave birth to a stillborn fetus.
Jessica Burgess pleaded guilty in July to charges of false reporting, providing an abortion after 20 weeks of gestation, and concealing, removing or abandoning a dead human body.
Although the case occurred before the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, it has been seen as a harbinger of how law enforcement may prosecute people for ending their own pregnancies in a post-Roe era – and how giant tech companies could go along with it.
Celeste Burgess was released from Madison county jail earlier this month, after serving a little more than half of her 90-day sentence, local Nebraska news outlet KTIV reported.
Celeste Burgess also reportedly deals with multiple mental health issues and became pregnant due to an abusive relationship.
The original article contains 474 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 65%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Before you get the pitchforks, this pregnancy was past the 5 month mark. While the majority are in favor of abortion, this is very close to third trimester abortion which isn't so popular without extenuating circumstances.
And it got that far because...
I'll bet you my right leg the answer isn't "because they had made an entirely unburdened choice to keep the pregnancy and changed their mind at the last minute."
Pitchforks remain acceptable.
It sounds like there was a lot going on. Attempting to burn and bury the fetus really doesn't help. The article does mention an abusive relationship, which could be justification, but I'd hope if she was literally prevented from getting an abortion for 20+ weeks then this wouldn't be happening.
Hope and Nebraska don't usually mix.
The mother helped to induce an abortion past 20 weeks and then they worked together to conceal the remains. Pre-Dobbs, this still would have been illegal. This would have been illegal across most of Europe. Nebraska law at the time put the limit at 20 weeks for an abortion.
She had plenty of time. When we're going into the 5 month territory, you know you're pregnant. They had the opportunity to do this the right way.
[The daughter] also reportedly deals with multiple mental health issues and became pregnant due to an abusive relationship.
[The mother] was set to undergo a court-ordered psychological evaluation ahead of her sentencing. But the evaluation was canceled due to lack of funding
Even if she didn’t try and fail to get an abortion before this point (and we don’t know whether she did), I’m pretty sure that most would agree that this is a circumstance where a late second trimester/very early third trimester should be acceptable.
It was also pretty despicable to cancel the mother’s psychological evaluation because of “lack of funding” and to then sentence her to multiple years in prison.
I’ll keep my pitchfork out, thanks.
I didn't initially believe them, but they're absolutely right:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_termination_of_pregnancy