Legal vs. Illegal Murder: Abortion in Utah | Print | E-mail
Written by Selwyn Duke
Tuesday, 02 March 2010 17:00
She is now a healthy baby, bouncing about, playing with bubbles in the bathtub, and taking in everything this mysterious world she entered has to offer. But she almost never was.

Or, at least, she almost never was outside the womb.
In fact, she certainly never would have been had the aspiring abortionist in whose crosshairs she found herself been more skilled. But, in this case, the man had no medical degree — just consent from the baby’s mother and a pair of fists and feet.

It’s a story that comes to us out of Utah. When a 17-year-old small-town girl (whose name has been withheld owing to her age) from eastern Utah found herself pregnant and facing threats of abandonment from her boyfriend, she enlisted the aid of an acquaintance to induce miscarriage. Sheena McFarland of the Salt Lake Tribune reports on the story, writing:

According to charging documents, 21-year-old Aaron Harrison brought the girl to his home near 1900 East and 2500 South in Naples around midnight on May 20 after she asked him to help her terminate the pregnancy.

... Harrison, an acquaintance of the girl, allegedly struck and bit her, leaving bruises on her belly and a bite mark on her neck. The girl paid $150 for the beating, according to charging documents.

Obviously and thankfully, the attempt was unsuccessful. And the amateur abortionist now sits in jail. The girl, however, will not endure the same fate. Though she was charged with a crime, she was acquitted by Eighth District Juvenile Court Judge Larry Steele. Under the law, a woman cannot be prosecuted for seeking an abortion, and Judge Steele ruled that the actions taken in the case met the definition of one. His reasoning was that since the law protecting women from such prosecutions doesn’t specify “medicalâ€