26 October 2005 - 4:40pm
Your womb: CRIME SCENE - DO NOT CROSS!
There are some pretty hot-headed folks who are eager for government seizure of wombs, but this is pretty ridiculous:
A New Hanover County social worker is still on the job after facing charges dealing with a teenager's abortion. Susan Taylor was charged with obstruction of justice.
The sheriff's office was investigating a statutory rape case involving a 14-year-old girl, but now their evidence is gone, the fetus.
In other words, the "crime victim" (in the state's eyes, anyway) is supposed to be denied treatment because her womb has been seized as a crime scene.
What logic!
"I'm sorry, sir, I can't set your broken leg because it's evidence of the accident."
"Ma'am, if we treat your husband's cardiac arrest, then we won't have evidence to submit to the insurance company that he had a heart attack."
"Remove the bullet? I can't do that! It's evidence!"
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I don't know enough about this case to judge, but there was an incident a while ago in which a woman was charged with obstruction of justice for taking her underage daughter for an abortion. Basically, the stepdad was under investigation for raping her, and it's possible that the mom covered for stepdad by arranging a hasty abortion.
It would probably be simple (especially, I imagine, for a social worker) to notify the doctors of the investigation so that they could save the fetus for evidence.
It's also possible, though, that the 14 year old didn't want to press charges, and in that case, the fetus is totally her business.
in today's Winston-Salem Journal explains that the parents were fully involved.
The social worker had no legal standing, and no professional responsibility to inform the clinic and/or doctor of anything. Since the parents didn't request DNA testing, they weren't the ones pressing for a prosecution. In fact, the article specifies that the social worker's "crime" consisted of advising the parents of the case detective's work schedule, presumably so that their daughter could undergo her abortion procedure without police involvement that was unrequested and undesired by the girl and her family.
So much for the mythical right to privacy. I'm surprised that they haven't arrested the parents, too.
...but law enforcers often don't follow logic. Isn't proof of an abortion proof of a pregnancy, proof of statutory rape? What did they need? DNA evidence? So blame the social worker rather than the perp or the investigating officer?