Source: The New York Times
A Tennessee woman who is accused of trying to abort her fetus at 24 weeks with a coat hanger last year is facing new felony charges, in a case that has raised concerns among some abortion-rights advocates over strict abortion laws.
The case concerning the woman, Anna Yocca, 32, has wound its way through the courts in Rutherford County for nearly a year, seesawing between multiple charges in three indictments as she has continued to sit in a central Tennessee jail.
On Monday, Ms. Yocca was arraigned on new charges: aggravated assault, an attempt to procure a miscarriage and an attempted criminal abortion. She entered a plea of not guilty, The Daily News Journal reported.
Ms. Yocca’s public defender, Gerald Melton, did not respond to multiple requests for comment by email or telephone. Hugh Ammerman, the Rutherford County assistant district attorney who is prosecuting the case, could not be reached early on Tuesday.
Ms. Yocca was first charged on Dec. 8, 2015, with the attempted murder of her 24-week-old fetus in September 2015. She was booked into the Rutherford County jail, where she has remained, with bond set at $200,000. She is expected to return to court on Dec. 9, The Journal reported.
The case has pitted abortion-rights advocates against defenders of the state’s anti-abortion laws, which are among the strictest in the country.
The authorities have said that Ms. Yocca climbed into a bathtub in September 2015 and tried to “self-abort” her pregnancy, which caused her to bleed so profusely that she was taken to a hospital, The Murfreesboro Post reported, quoting a police report.
The baby, a boy, was delivered alive by cesarean section at the hospital, weighing 1.5 pounds, but he had injuries, The Murfreesboro Post reported. The police report, quoting unidentified physicians, blamed Ms. Yocca’s probing with the hanger, but it offered no medical evidence for what the indictment called bodily injury, and similar health problems are often associated with extreme prematurity.
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