Mom Charged With Attempted Murder After Failed Coat-Hanger Abortion
Because of her state’s unconstitutional anti-choice laws, a Tennessee woman who was forced to resort to self-aborting her pregnancy with a coat hanger has just been charged with attempted murder.
After significant blood loss, Yocca’s boyfriend rushed her to Saint Thomas Rutherford hospital where doctor’s delivered the severely injured 1.5 pound baby – despite the mother’s insistence that she wanted to end the pregnancy and the baby’s sigificant physical trauma.
Not only did this desperate woman almost die because she didn’t have access to abortion, the baby will need medical care for the rest of its life due to damage done to its lungs, heart and eyes during the abortion attempt. Yocca is being held on on $200,000 bond was indicted today by a grand jury.
This is a dangerous example of what happens when law makers limit women’s access to birth control and eliminate options for reproductive health. Tennessee is led by anti-choice Governor Bill Haslam and a pro-life, mostly male, Republican dominated House and Senate. A whopping 96% of Tennessee clinics are without abortion clinics, and once women are able to get to a clinic, they are faced with state required waiting periods, multiple visits, and anti-choice counseling.
Tennessee lawmakers’ callousness and ignorance to women’s realities have resulted in a child who won’t see his mother for many years and will require life-long medicare — and a mother who has had her life ruined because she didn’t have legal access to abortion providers.
