Vol. 81/No. 5 February 6, 2017
Tennessee woman framed up on abortion charges
is released
“Anna doesn’t face probation, parole or any fines,” Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, told the Militant in a Jan. 10 phone interview. “The plea deal meant that the remaining charges against her were dropped and she was released for time served.”
Yocca worked at an Amazon fulfillment center in Murfreesboro when she was arrested in December 2015. Three months earlier, Tennessee authorities charged, she had attempted “self-abortion” with a coat hanger at home. Yocca was 24 weeks pregnant at the time. She sought help at a local hospital, where two weeks later doctors delivered a dangerously premature baby boy, weighing 1.5 pounds. The baby faces serious medical problems, and has since been adopted.
Yocca was initially charged with felony attempted murder, with a potential six-year prison term, based on a Tennessee law passed in 2012 that expanded the definition of “personhood” to include a fetus. Similar “feticide” laws are on the books in at least 38 states, part of the ongoing assault on women’s right to choose abortion.
The murder charge against Yocca was reduced to aggravated assault in the spring of 2016. Last November, however, Yocca was hit with three new charges: aggravated assault with a weapon, attempted procurement of a miscarriage, and attempted criminal abortion. The latter two charges are part of Tennessee’s criminal abortion code dating back to the late 1800s.
Yocca’s bail was set at $200,000 at the time of her arrest. Because she was unable to pay the bond, she remained in the Rutherford County Adult Detention Center this entire time, even though she was never tried or convicted of anything.
Yocca was not the first woman in the United States to be imprisoned on feticide charges. On Sept. 1, 2016, Purvi Patel of South Bend, Indiana, was released from the state women’s prison in Indianapolis after being convicted a year and a half earlier under Indiana’s feticide law. The prosecution charged she had used abortion drugs bought online to murder her fetus. She was also found guilty of child neglect when she gave birth to a stillborn child.
During her trial, Patel said she had put it in a dumpster behind her family’s restaurant in an effort to hide the pregnancy from her family. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The Indiana Court of Appeals vacated the two contradictory convictions in July 2016. The judges ruled that the state’s feticide law wasn’t meant to be used to prosecute women for their own abortions, but rather to prosecute people who attacked pregnant women.
However, they also ruled that Patel could be resentenced on a lower-level child neglect charge.
She remained in prison while the State Attorney General’s Office contemplated an appeal. When the attorney general decided not to, a St. Joseph County judge resentenced Patel to 18 months of prison time, less time than she had already served, and she was released.
Related articles:
‘Women’s march’ no advance in fight for rights of women
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home