Yocca's lawyer, state-appointed public defender Gerald Melton (who has not responded to multiple requests for comment), filed a motion to dismiss the homicide charge, arguing that Tennessee's definition of attempted first-degree murder includes an exception for acts by the pregnant mother toward her own embryo or fetus. This motion was granted on February 29, 2016, and two weeks later Yocca was arraigned on a lesser charge of aggravated fetal assault. In November of the same year, this charge was replaced by three others: aggravated assault with a weapon, attempted procurement of a miscarriage, and attempted criminal abortion. The latter two charges stem from laws enacted in the late 1800s. Yocca was arraigned on these new charges on November 28, 2016, and pled not guilty to each. Unable to pay the $200,000 bond for her release, she was detained throughout this entire ordeal.
Advocates are celebrating the fact that she's no longer incarcerated, but they fear that her conviction sets a worrying precedent: Though Yocca is free to go home, she is technically a felon. "Our concern is that it puts an individual woman at risk who terminates on her own, but also puts all women's abortion rights at risk by suggesting that this is somehow a crime, that there is a victim," said Sara Ainsworth, a lawyer who focuses on advancing women's legal rights.Since the Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade, abortion has been legal throughout the US; for decades, even the flagbearers of the anti-abortion movement have stressed that they don't believe in criminalizing women who choose to terminate their pregnancies. In March of this year, Jeanne Mancini, President of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, said, "No pro-lifer would ever want to punish a woman who has chosen abortion. This is against the very nature of what we are about." And yet, Yocca was punished.The whole time she was concerned for her health, her safety, and never gave any attention to the health and safety to the unborn child.
Purvi Patel's mugshot via St. Joseph County Police Department
"For the entire 40 weeks of pregnancy a woman's every action, inaction, or decision could be the basis for a criminal charge of assault," Yocca's lawyers said. "The additional absurd, illogical, and unjust results that could spring from this interpretation are boundless."This is a fear that Diaz-Tello of the SIA Legal Team shares. "What are we going to do if a pregnant woman is involved in a car crash or slips on an icy sidewalk or even picks up a heavy toddler?" she demanded. "Where do you draw that line? If the state can step in and punish people for the outcome of their pregnancy, and there is no logical place to draw it. The line becomes arbitrary. If somebody doesn't like the way a pregnant person is conducting themselves during a pregnancy, that could become a crime."Though there was a smattering of arrests over self-induced abortion in the 1990s, experts say such cases have proliferated since 2010. There are a few, interlocking reasons for this. Perhaps most significantly, hundreds of anti-abortion laws have been passed since 2010, drastically reducing abortion access in large swaths of the South and Midwest by imposing burdensome restrictions and shutting down clinics. In these states, getting an abortion is not easy and may prove impossible for women of low economic means.The natural, logical conclusion to criminalization is that pregnant individuals become second-class citizens.
Somebody who feels like this—inflicting that level of pain into your own body—is their best choice, we have to understand that she was at some point of desperation.
Photo via Getty
In some cases, the laws being used to prosecute self-induced abortion cases were actually intended to protect pregnant women from violence or children from parents who are behaving dangerously. The 2004 Unborn Victims of Violence Act, passed in response to the murder of Laci Peterson, recognizes a fetus in utero as a legal victim if injured or killed during the commission of a violent crime. Thirty-eight states have their own "two-victim" laws, meaning it is considered a separate crime to harm a fetus. However in most cases, these laws include exceptions for acts with respect to someone's own pregnancy.Prosecutors are essentially misusing criminal codes to wage moral or political crusades, according to Ainsworth. "In cases like Anna's, prosecutors are not using laws where anyone said they want to make it a crime to terminate their own pregnancy," she explained. "These laws were never intended to be used against women in these circumstances. There is not a playbook—these individual prosecutors in these counties, if a case comes to their attention, it's like, 'Well, gosh, that's wrong, I should prosecute them.'"
Advocates warn that this type of overzealous prosecution doesn't just have damning legal and ethical repercussions—there is also the possibility that it will dissuade women from seeking life-saving medical attention. In all of the cases described above, a woman was arrested because she sought medical care, and hospital staff reported her to the police. This is not only a profound violation of privacy, but also sets a dangerous precedent that will result in deaths. If people are afraid that visiting a hospital will land them in jail, they won't go, even when they are in desperate need of help."We as a society should hold as a number one priority that no one should have to choose between facing a life-threatening situation alone, like bleeding out, or seeking a prison term," said Adams. "Anna was prosecuted because she sought help and disclosed what happened, and when someone is prosecuted for doing that, that sends a message to other women that medical care won't be a safe haven for them. We know from history that that kind of dissuasive message has deadly consequences."After seeing what happened to Yocca, it's not unreasonable to expect that someone in a similar situation, who is bleeding heavily at home, would be reluctant to go to a hospital or be honest with their doctors. This will inevitably cause the doctor-patient relationship to deteriorate, not to mention the quality of care."Criminalization will providers put in situations where they can't necessarily give the best healthcare to their patients, and patients may not reveal information to them that is necessary for the provider to give the best care possible," said Elizabeth Nash, Senior State Issues Manager at the Guttmacher Institute. "Obviously we've seen this in the past, but if there are criminal penalties for women, then we are going to see DAs try to build cases, and all that does is further pull women away from the medical system."When women are criminalized for the outcomes of their pregnancies, wombs become crime scenes. When states monitor reproduction, women are dehumanized and relegated to baby carriers. When people are punished for the choices they make about their own bodies, including when to have children, they are not free. Incarceration is an agent of intimidation and fear, and women will die to avoid it.President-elect Donald Trump is on record saying there would "have to be some form of punishment" for women who have abortions if the procedure were outlawed in the US. He later backtracked, but the sentiment is clear. His meaning lingers. A Glover Park Group survey found that 39 percent of Trump voters think a woman seeking an abortion should be punished if the procedure is made illegal in America. In January, an Idaho lawmaker said he planned to put forward a bill that would classify abortion as first-degree murder, for the mother as well as the provider."We're deeply concerned with the increase in criminalization tied to seeking abortion care," said Renee Bracey Sherman, the senior public affairs manager of the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF). "In several states, women, particularly women of color, have been arrested for or on suspicion of self-inducing their abortions, or after a miscarriage. No one should feel unsafe or risk arrest simply for seeking an abortion."No one should have to choose between facing a life-threatening situation alone, like bleeding out, or seeking a prison term.
Whether or not the Trump administration manages to engineer the overthrow of Roe v. Wade, there is no doubt that under its reign, abortion will become harder to access. By defunding Planned Parenthood, by allowing Congress to pass laws that restrict abortion, and by filling lower courts with judges who will allow state lawmakers to get away with anti-choice legislation, abortion could quickly become an option available to only a privileged few.Without accessible, affordable access abortion, women in America will do what women throughout the entire course of history have done—they will take matters into their own hands, whether that's with pessaries of crocodile dung, pennyroyal tea, pills ordered off the internet, or, yes, coat hangers. If prosecutors and legislators don't want women resorting to these desperate methods, there is a simple solution: ensure birth control and abortion care are safe, affordable and accessible.