Court Allows Inmate’s Abortion

Posted on October 17, 2005

The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for a Missouri inmate to obtain an abortion over the objection of state officials. In a brief order, the Court refused the state’s request to stay a federal judge’s order requiring that the inmate be taken to a St. Louis clinic. Justice Clarence Thomas on Friday night had temporarily blocked that order, but the Court on Monday lifted the stay Thomas had issued.

U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple of Jefferson City, Mo., last week had issued an emergency order to require the abortion. The woman, who learned she was pregnant after being arrested in California, is in the 16th or 17th week of pregnancy. She sought an abortion while in California, but was transferred to a women’s prison in Vandalia, Mo., before an abortion could be performed. State officials, citing Missouri’s official view that abortion should be discouraged, told her that they would not arrange for an abortion that was not medically necessary.

The case is Crawford v. Roe (application docket 05-A-333).

The woman faces a four-year prison term, after being picked up on a parole violation.

This was the first abortion controversy at the Supreme Court in which Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., participated. Although there were no recorded dissents from the order denying the stay request of Missouri officials, that did not necessarily mean that all nine Justices had voted in favor of the order. The actual vote was not disclosed. Had Roberts not participated, that would have been noted, under the Court’s usual practice.

There you go folks, the follow up to our earlier story. Your hard earned tax dollars at work paying for this criminal’s transportation to the abortion clinic.

» Filed Under ACLU, News

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4 Responses to “Court Allows Inmate’s Abortion”

The MaryHunter on October 17th, 2005 4:41 pm

Jay, what I’d heard was that the abortion was not being paid for by the government but through other funds, and that the issue was that the state was going to provide transportation and security (and cover costs) for the inmate to go to the place to have the abortion.

So, it is possible that this story is being misrepresented by a MSM too eager to trumpet a SCOTUS ‘pro-abortion’ decision when it really was only ‘pro-abortion’ on a technicality. In fact, I’ve heard this also reported several times on the radio top and bottom hour news blurps as “SCOTUS OK’s abortion” which grabs the ear but seems rather inaccurate.

I’d like to see more in-depth reporting on this story before I start losing confidence in this SCOTUS and Chief Justice.
Chris on October 18th, 2005 9:27 am

Would you be against transporting this woman using tax payer funds to any other type of medical procdure? She is paying for the abortion so your tax dollars aren’t doing it. Abortion is still legal so she isn’t violating any laws. Just curious, if you forced her to have the baby how thirlled would you be to spend your tax dollars raising the child because that seems the liekly consequence. Might want to shell out the 300 bucks now instead of the hundreds of thousands it would cost over the next 18 years
The MaryHunter on October 18th, 2005 10:50 am

Chris, my above comments notwithstanding: the ‘abortion for convenience’ argument is not going to win any converts over here.

Perhaps instead, we should look at the root cause, and therefore critique the leftist and permissive cultural mores in this nation that might have led her toward both (a) encarceration for a parole violation - how stupid is that? and (b) unwanted pregnancy - how avoidable is that?
BOB on October 21st, 2005 12:34 am

I have yet to hear how our new chief justice voted - has anyone?Will we EVER know how Roberts voted? I too am disgusted with providing taxpayer funded bus trips to abortion clinics. Joeseph Mengele must be smiling from wherever he resides.