Jennifer Whalen, a 39 year old mother of three from rural Pennsylvania, is serving a 9-18 month jail sentence for purchasing and dispensing abortion-causing medications to help her teenage daughter abort an unplanned pregnancy.
The case is being used as an example of the lengths that women will go to to end a pregnancy when abortion is not immediately and freely available.
And perhaps it is.
But it’s also an example of just how easy we expect everything to be, and how those expectations are leading us to do things that are really, really stupid.
Because make no mistake. What Whalen did was stupid, irresponsible and dangerous.
Abortion is legal in Pennsylvania.
It was available to Whalen’s daughter with parental consent (which she clearly had) at a safe facility 75 miles away. That’s about an hour and 15 minute ride. Not the end of the world.
Yes, Pennsylvania has an absolutely ridiculous law requiring a 24 hour waiting period, meaning Whalen might have had to take time off from work to get her daughter an abortion. Or not – because the abortion facility nearest them has Saturday hours.
And yes, Whalen and her husband had just one car. And no health insurance for the $400 procedure.
I get it.
I really do. This was not going to be something easy.
But this is an abortion. A medical procedure that, while exceedingly safe, needs to be done by someone who knows what they are doing. Whalen, while not a licensed RN as previously reported, works in a healthcare facility as a nurses aide. So I’m sorry, but she should have known better. And I don’t quite buy it that she did not know that buying abortion pills online without a prescription was illegal.
And I won’t get into the ethical issues of aborting your daughter’s pregnancy, but it raises so many concerns about coersion that I know the docs at Geisinger Medical Center were right to report the case to the authorities after Whalen took her daughter to their ER during her induced miscarriage.
So, in case it’s not obvious by now…
I’m not jumping on the “Poor Jennifer Whalen, she had no choice, she was ignorant, she was scammed by online sellers of abortion pills and sent up the river by those mean doctors in the ER” bandwagon.
Yes, I’m pro choice. Yes, I abhor the rash of abortion restrictions being passed by state legislatures across this country. And yes, I truly wish that abortion were freely available at every doctor’s office in every small community everywhere.
But it’s not.
And in this reality we have, parents like Jennifer Whalen have to make choices – to do the right thing, even when it’s the harder thing, or to do what’s easy.
She chose the easy route, and I think by now she knows that she made a bad judgement.
Now, do I think Whalen deserves a 6 month prison sentence?
Of course not.
Whalen was not setting herself up as an abortion provider. She was not selling her services or posing as a health professional.
One time, she purchased medication over the internet for her daughter, who by all accounts took the medication freely and of her own accord. The medication, thankfully, worked as advertised.
But rather than come up with a way to turn this case into something positive for Whalen, her family and the community of women at large, Montour County DA Rebecca Warren and Judge Gary Norton chose instead to criminalize a mother for making the wrong choice in a very tough situation.
Warren says this case is not about Abortion Rights , but about “endangering the welfare of a child“.
Because sending a mother to prison is really good for her children, right?
Talk about bad judgement.
Your comments are sensible…but Mom Whelan had no access to wise advice…
Having made the worst mistake of my young life by having an abortion during my college years, trust me when I tell you that jail will be the least of the consequences of the mother and daughter. It’s a very rare women who goes through life not having extreme regret over an abortion. Eventually, it comes back to haunt almost every women. I wish more was written about it, because it’s true for 99% of us. It’s interesting that “mental health” is an acceptable “condition” for late term abortions, yet the same “mental health” concern never comes into the equation for 1st term abortions.
Sooner or later, the reality of abortion hits. Adoption would have and continues to be the best solution for an unwanted pregnancy. Had only I not been so selfish, or had so many “cheerleaders.”
Patricia –
I cannot speak to your own experience of your abortion decision – it is yours. I am sorry for your regret.
But I would caution you about extrapolating your experience to other women. Each woman experiences her abortion and her choice differently.
This is why, IMO, choice is the operational word.
Best to you.
Peggy
My bigger point Peggy, is that I indeed had a “choice,” in fact a very easy choice. At the time, I was 100% certain it was not only right but perfectly right. I had not one iota of doubt, guilt, or concern for my unborn. It was as natural to me as going to the dentist.
That was also the experience of many of my friends who also had abortions. Today, we all regret them, save for one friend. In hind sight, I would give anything to have had one experienced person like myself, or one of my friends, standing outside that clinic sharing their experience over 30 years. Heck I didn’t encounter a pro lifer, only cheerleaders.
Is it only because my experience is negative that you have a concern for my “extrapolating?” I’m simply (and honestly) sharing the life experience of women 30 years out post abortions.
But you don’t need to take my word for it. Look no further than many of the women politicians who admit they had abortions. If that isn’t disguised abortion guilt, I don’t what else it would look like. Anger is unresolved hurt, and I’m saying that there are a lot of post abortive hurting women out there, too afraid or intimidated to talk about it.
While I certainly have no intention of having a drawn out abortion debate, I’m only suggesting that some awareness and consideration be given to the emotional state of post abortive women. After all, the best choices are made from honest information. What could possibly be wrong with knowing how women who made the ‘right’ choice feel about that same choice 10, 15, 20, or 30 years out? We should all want to know that.
A number of years ago now, my tubal ligation failed. I became pregnant. Then I had a medical abortion. I still remember the overwhelming feeling of relief, of the end of an unwanted pregnancy I had gone to great lengths to avoid. No regrets whatsoever. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, but it’s unlikely I’ll have to because my husband has since had a vasectomy.
How dare you project your own emotional problems on me or anyone else. My life, my choice, and your life, your choice – which YOU must learn to live with.
And how exactly Jennifer have I projected “my emotional problems on you?”
I merely stated my own personal experience, as did you, of which we are both entitled. FWIW, I too had a “great overwhelming feeling of relief,” with no regrets at the time and for a considerable number of years afterwards.
That said, I caution you of potential triggers. For me, it was at the death bed of my mother. “Life” simply took on new meaning.
Again, my purpose of responding to Peggy’s post was simply to speak from experience, that even with safe abortions and the legal right to choose, that choice can still have, (and most often does), emotional consequences.
I fail to see how any reasonable person not suffering the consequence of abortion guilt (unless suppressed), would find that information offensive.
Is it much different than the person who decides to smoke cigarettes, free to enjoy them for years on end, only to develop small cell lung cancer 25 years later? That’s why there’s a required warning on every pack of cigarettes. Both the tobacco companies and the medical establishment have an obligation to warn of any potential risks, including long term risks. If emotional distress is enough of a reason (mothers’ heath) to abort a sentient human life in a partial birth late term abortion, it should certainly be enough, and required, to warn all women who contemplate abortions.
But no, not happening. Instead, we have a culture and a medical establishment that chooses instead to be reticent and “normalize” it. Because if abortion is culturally normalized, maybe it won’t hurt so much.
At the very least, the OB/GYNS should be asking their post abortive patients if they experienced any post abortive emotional distress. I guarantee that the answers they would hear behind closed doors, protected by patient confidentiality would be shocking to say the least.
Lastly, I totally get that we live in a “sex without consequences” culture, that would unlikely ever not want abortion available and legal for that “just in case” scenario. I’m also equally as passionate (as in, let’s not risk the life of the mother too) when it comes to women getting safe abortions (most recently in CA which now legally allows non MD’s to perform abortions). I fought the good fight to make that not happen.
Despite it all, I’m still saying, from first hand experience, that sooner or later, with few exceptions, abortions emotionally hurt women, even when, convinced at the time we have made the “right choice.”
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