A man is accused of causing his pregnant girlfriend to have a miscarriage. He is charged with “criminal homicide of an unborn child, first-degree murder of an unborn child, aggravated assault of an unborn child, aggravated assault, hindering apprehension or prosecution, and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence.” The charge that sticks out, here, as I’m sure you’ve all noticed, is the murder one.

The charges are based on the following events, according to police:

The victim, a 36-year-old woman from Sayre and a pharmacist at a Wegmans Market, said she had a two-year physical relationship with Tercero, also a Wegmans pharmacist.

Tercero was engaged to another woman at the time.

The victim, whose name is being withheld by this newspaper, told Tercero she was pregnant in mid-January.

Tercero told the woman he could use the drug misoprostol to induce a miscarriage. The victim told Tercero she would get an abortion instead.

The victim, however, made a Feb. 24 appointment for an abortion but changed her mind. She called Tercero to tell him she would keep the baby.

In late February, on the victim’s birthday, Tercero visited her at home and used misoprostol he allegedly stole from Wegmans pharmacy to cause the miscarriage.

Without her knowing it, Tercero put one pill in her vagina, one in her juice and one in her water. She was 13 weeks pregnant at the time.

When the victim began to miscarry, she found a partially dissolved misoprostol tablet among the discharge.

Tercero drove the victim to Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, where she miscarried.

Where to begin?

One: I am terribly sorry for her loss. Two: I agree with the charge; if the accusations are proven in court, this man is guilty intentionally of ending the life of a human being. Three: I can’t help but note that had the woman voluntarily swallowed those pills, we would never have heard of her and nobody would have been charged with anything, yet that same unborn human being would still be dead.

That doesn’t make much sense to me.

[h/t]

David Cameron, Conservative leader in the upcoming election, says he would support a reduction in the abortion limit from 24 to 22 or 20 weeks.

The usual suspects chime in. It’s so rare! And it’s only for those who are really disadvantaged! And our position is so precarious, we can’t suffer the smallest change.

I don’t think it takes a doctrinal expert to know that Catholics for Choice is a bit like Vegetarians for Meat. Come on. Really? You guys have been spending too much time with Nancy Pelosi. And on that note, I think it bears adding that this isn’t an active Canadian group, so far as I can tell.

Anyway, they are criticizing the maternal health mandate. I think it serves their purposes to do so, as part of the healthcare debate south of the border.

This is a reasonable proposal on the maternal health initiative, sure. It’s like this: If someone wants to kill their spouse, but decides they don’t actually want to do the dirty deed, then it is reasonable to hire someone else to do it. You see? Reasonable.

A reader sent a link to this story (in French) about the recent decision to ban strip clubs in Iceland. I’d vaguely heard about it, but didn’t pay it much mind – I always thought Iceland was a bit of a weirdo kinda place. Maybe I should have (my translation):

But isn’t dancing in legal clubs better than clandestine prostitution? Feminists disagree. ‘The presence of dancing bars increases prostitution instead of reducing it,’ says Katrin Anna Gudmundsdottir. ‘If we want to fight prostitution and the traffic of women, we cannot accept that women should be akin to something you can buy and sell.

‘Prostitution isn’t the world’s oldest profession, it’s probably the world’s oldest oppression,’ says Ms. Gudmundsdottir. ‘We can’t make it less dangerous by legalizing it. It is a form of violence, so we have no choice but to make it illegal. We may not succeed in eliminating all forms of prostitution right away, but one day, when we have more equality and liberty, prostitution will be inconceivable.'”

I’m not sure exactly how realistic this woman’s position is, but I don’t really care. Maybe she’s a touch too idealistic. But so what? Isn’t her ideal worth pursuing? Wouldn’t you rather live in a world where buying and selling sexual services from other humans would be virtually inconceivable?

I think so. And now I’m thinking: What lessons can those of us who would prefer to live in a world where the indiscriminate killing of “inconvenient” or “unwanted” unborn babies is virtually inconceivable learn from this example?

Why did Status of Women Canada fund a pro-abortion group to do a disinformation campaign about crisis pregnancy centres?

Your tax dollars at work.

This writer claims she is so very rational and logical and reasonable. Methinks she doth protest too much. 

She responds to someone who says she wants to broaden the discussion about The Pill, asking:

If you’re just asking questions and broadening the discussion, why is it so wrong to come to the conclusion that you want to be on the pill?  Why the self-flagellation, if this is about broadening the discussion?

The answer to that, I think, is pretty simple: A very high percentage of women are on The Pill and unaware of side effects of The Pill. They are unaware of any effective replacements for The Pill. I think statistics say 90 per cent of women will be on The Pill at some point in their lives. Therefore, any broadening of the discussion ain’t going to start with getting more women on it.

She’s allowed to rant and defend The Pill and call it natural and do whatever she wants… it’s her web site. I just somewhat resent her doing so as an ambassador of logic. She’s just as emotional as the rest of us.

Well, not very useful anyway. As Brian Lilley reports, if all you knew about abortion you’d read in polls, you’d be quite lost.

News you need:

Women with degrees are almost twice as likely to drink daily as those without, but they’re also more likely to admit they have a drinking problem, according to a new study. While the same link is seen among men, the correlation is less strong, the UK Telegraph reports. In the study, researchers from the London School of Economics tracked the lives of thousands of women and men, all born in the UK during the same week in 1970, and at the time aged 39. Women’s drinking habits can even be predicted from scores in school tests from as young as five, say the authors, who suggest several reasons: better-educated women tend to have children later, putting off the accompanying responsibilities. They also have more active social lives, and often work in male-dominated offices with a drinking culture. They might have grown up in middle-class families, and seen their parents drink regularly. The study found that women with some educational qualifications were 71 per cent more likely to drink on most days compared to women with none; women with degree-level qualifications were 86 per cent more likely to do so.