That changed in June, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Akers sat down in her law office and pulled up Tennessee’s new criminal abortion statute.Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion delivered straight to your inbox at 7 a.m., Monday to Friday.By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You may unsubscribe any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails.
She had accidently become the state’s primary interpreter of this law, which went into effect Aug. 25. Within days she quit her cushy job in a law firm and started a nonprofit she named Standing Together Tennessee. For the past two months, she’s crisscrossed the state on a tour aimed at explaining this abortion law to doctors, and the intricacies of pregnancies to the lawyers who might have to defend them.
These are often desired pregnancies, with parents who have decorated nurseries and decided on names. It’s devastating every time, she said. Since Roe fell, her colleagues had to tell three mothers carrying babies who would not survive that the law forbids them from ending their pregnancies.Article content
“We are now at the mercy of the criminal justice system,” Zite said. “Should I win? I think so. But do I want to go through that? No. I don’t want to feel guilty until proven innocent.” “It’s like I opened a box, and thought there was one question. And in answering that question, 10 more questions arise and 10 more from that and 10 more from that,” she said. “That’s the most frustrating part about this whole endeavor is feeling like I’m on a merry-go-round, going round and round.”
Words matter in a courtroom. She’s spent hours arguing with prosecutors over the definition of “unreasonable.” There is no world in which she can imagine telling a judge that her client thought there was an exception, even though there wasn’t. “I think you’re going to be hard-pressed to find a prosecutor that is going to prosecute a physician when they can back up their claim that they did this to save the life of the mother,” Brewer said.
That gives them wide berth, Brewer thinks — it doesn’t require death be imminent and it doesn’t mean every decision will be second-guessed. Pregnancy complications are not black-and-white, Bessett said. It was cases in the gray area, where serious health consequences were not imminent but likely, that caused doctors “great moral distress,” Bessett said.
Any Canadian content in this Canadian news article? Slow news day eh.