A horrifying story out of Michigan last week.
It was an unwanted pregnancy, police said.
And for several weeks, her 16-year-old boyfriend struck her in the belly with a baseball bat in an effort to terminate her pregnancy, police said.
In October, the 16-year-old girl had a miscarriage... Afterward, the teens wrapped the fetus in plastic and buried it in an open field.
What would drive kids to such an act? Maybe, just maybe, the fact that the state has done all it can to leave them with no other options.
A recent NARAL survey found that Michigan ranks 44th in the nation for reproductive rights, with an F-grade for anti-abortion laws that include gag orders, restrictive waiting periods, and punitive "informed consent" rules -- all in a state where 83% of counties have no abortion clinics anyway.
I read this story with a sinking feeling that we'll be hearing a lot like it in the coming years -- and, worse, not hearing even more. But, hey, it's Mifepristone that's unsafe, not wailing on your girlfriend with a Louisville Slugger.
But as I read on it became even worse. Apparently, the question this story raises for Michigan is not, "How have we so failed our children that they've been reduced to such self-destructive brutality," but rather, "Can we charge them with a crime?"
There is no law in Michigan that specifies when terminating a pregnancy is equivalent to killing a baby. But Smith said case law indicates that the fetus must be able to survive outside of the womb for manslaughter charges to be considered.... The teen mother was visiting friends recently in the Upper Peninsula when she told them about the fetus. The friends then went to police.
What are friends for?
