She was jailed after police found that she had searched for abortion information on her phone. The Washington Post reports that her search history helped prosecutors charge her with, quote, “killing her infant child.”
Part of that is disturbing. Yes, Reid was in error that the woman was in legal danger for having a stillbirth, which was not true.
But I am of a mind that our antibortion laws should be about the illegality of providing abortions, except in the exceptions provided by law (such as possibly to save the life of the mother), BUT that the purpose and intent of the law is not and should not be about making criminals of the mothers. So, what I do find distubing was the search of her phone and criminalizing her for a record on her phone about searching for abortion services. That search is not the performance of an abortion, any more than searching for pot sales in a state where pot is illegal constitutes smoking pot.
If women are criminalized under new state abortion laws, the people like Reid will still have good cause - in my view - to be against those parrticular abortion laws. And those state laws with the highest possible level of abortion restrictions can’t be thinking they ought to go after one of their state’s citizens who travels out of state to get an abortion. The attempted application of such laws should be restricted to what happens within their own state, and not trying to reach out-of-state activities by residents of their state.
People cross state lines all the time to buy liqupr or cigarettes cheaper just across the border. They are not hunted down like criminals, unless it is found they are trying to sell those goods in-state to someone else.
“Conservatism” in law (as to desired outcomes) is a denial of real conservatism when it attempts overreach that is not conservative at all. Conservativism in law is not just the motive of the law, but its application. Laws the restrict citizens of state A, are not laws that can be thought to restrict activities in state B merely if committed by a citizen from state A.
The only time I’ve seen a mother charged is when they’ve continued to use drugs or drink heavily during the pregnancy