Authorities in New York City launched an investigation Monday after a dead human fetus was found in a bag near a Brooklyn school.
The horrifying discovery was made around 7 a.m. by a woman passing through the area who immediately called the New York Police Department, according to WABC-TV. No arrests have been made.
While there’s no doubt the early morning revelation is stomach-churning, there are some on the far left who could potentially see criminal charges filed against the yet-to-be-found assailant as an attack on women’s autonomy, assuming the suspect is the infant’s mother.
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In January, The New York Times published an eight-part series in which the editorial board bemoaned laws across the country that treat “a fetus as a person” and “a woman as less of one.”
The first article — “When Prosecutors Jail a Mother for a Miscarriage” — centers on the experiences of Keysheonna Reed, a 24-year-old Arkansas woman whose fraternal twins were stillborn six to eight weeks before reaching full-term.
Reed delivered the stillborn infants in a bathtub in her small home in Wynne. In a panic, the young woman, already a mother of three, found an old purple suitcase and put the bodies in the luggage. She then got into her car and “began to pray and just drove,” she said, according to a court filing.
Ultimately, Reed left the suitcase on the side of the road.
The infants’ bodies were discovered several weeks later and Reed, who cooperated with the police, was charged with two counts of abuse of a corpse, a felony in Arkansas carrying with it a minimum sentence of three years and up to a decade in prison.
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The case is horrific, both for the stillborn infants and for Reed, but it’s important to make one thing clear: Reed is not facing criminal charges, as the Times article suggested, for “pregnancy loss.” She is facing jail time for tampering with human corpses.
All of this — the Times series and the tragic discovery Monday morning — comes not long after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed into law legislation that protects and expands women’s access to late-term abortion.
The new law protects abortion access up to 24 weeks into pregnancy or at any point “to protect the patient’s life or health.”
“Every individual who becomes pregnant has the fundamental right to choose to carry the pregnancy to term, to give birth to a child, or to have an abortion, pursuant to this article,” the new legislation states.
Cuomo was quick to sign the bill and celebrate its passage:
The #ReproductiveHealthAct is now law in New York State. We lit the spire pink to celebrate. pic.twitter.com/dJbZqvWefV
— Archive: Governor Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) January 23, 2019
On the heels of the New York law, embattled Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) defended a since-tabled law that would have made it easier to access late-term abortion in the commonwealth. In his defense of the proposal, though, the governor seemed to endorse infanticide.
Virginia Del. Kathy Tran (D), the chief sponsor of the failed abortion bill, claimed last month her legislation would allow a woman to obtain an abortion even after beginning labor. Northam took it a step further during a radio interview, seemingly arguing a woman could abort her infant after giving birth.
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“If the mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen,” the governor said. “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
While Northam has refused to walk back his comments, the Virginia leader has taken issue with the suggestion that he supports infanticide.