Well, it gets stranger.
CAIRNS teenager Tegan Leach, facing up to seven years' jail under Queensland law for procuring her own abortion, came to the attention of police with her 21-year-old boyfriend during an unrelated murder hunt in the northern city.
It seems there was a MASSIVE (I can't use that word anymore without CAPS ;)) murder investigation going on, involving interviews with at least 200 potential informants. Somehow along the line -- police decline to be specific -- the illegal, self-induced abortion came to their attention.
Detective Senior Sergeant Ed Kimbacher would not reveal the source of the tip-off to police about the allegedly illegal abortion, but said the information that prompted police to raid the couple's Mount Sheridan home on March 30.
But what on earth -- other than commmon, or garden-variety panty-sniffing -- caused the cops to charge the young couple?
Meanwhile, allegedly, they have left their house after a fire-bomb was thrown at it and anti-abortion fundy nutbars stood outside and chanted 'abuse'. But noooooo, that wasn't the doing of the good, peaceful nutbars.
Teresa Martin, president of Cherish Life Queensland, yesterday distanced the group from any violence. . . . "If that was the case," she said, referring to Dr de Costa's uncorroborated claims of a firebombing, "certainly in no way shape or form would any of these people be members of Cherish Life."
Abortion is illegal in the state, unless women leap through various stooopid hoops, which this couple found a way around.
They both face prison sentences.
The case has renewed calls to decriminalize abortion as sensible and humane jurisdictions like Canada have done. It has also sparked stories about other Australian women taking matters into their own hands and getting the abortion drugs themselves.
Trial starts September 3. It'll be a corker.
Some good may come of this, but it's such a shame these young people have to be put through all this crap.
No comments:
Post a Comment