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]
by 
My question is, just how did he put a pill in her vagina without her knowing it?
And you know that in Canada, if something like this happened, there is no way that it would make the news. Because the abortion debate is settled. And we just can’t think about it anymore.
There is no way he could be prosecuted for murder here in Canada, because the Canadian Criminal Code states very explicitly that an unborn child is not a human being. The irrationality of section 223 goes way beyond abortion, and that becomes very obvious in a case like this.
I agree, this law is insane. I think that’s about as far as our agreement will go on the issue though :> Particually as all the laws like it in the US that I know of date from after roe v wade, and were passed for the specific purpose of establishing legal precidents which might later be of use in overturning the decision.
“criminal homicide of an unborn child, first-degree murder of an unborn child”
Isn’t that sort of redundant? They sound like exactly the same thing to me. As does charging him with assault and murder for the same victim (I imagine the other assault charge relates to the woman, which sounds fine to me). I suspect the prosecutor is just trying to pad the charges a little there, in case any of them get thrown out on a technicality or perhaps to pad the sentence or his own CV.
I would like to see a nice big civil case tacked on afterwards though… I’m sure there is some way the victim could get a lot of compensation! Even if uninjured, emotional damage might do it. Not only would he go to jail, she would get all his stuff. A good ending.