Simopoulos v. Virginia

In Simopoulos v. Virginia, an abortionist goes to jail. Yes! I couldn't believe it, either.

"P.M. was a 17-year-old high school student when she went to appellant's clinic on November 8, 1979. She was unmarried, and told appellant that she was approximately 22 weeks pregnant. She requested an abortion and didn't want her parents to know. Examination by appellant confirmed that P.M. was five months pregnant..."

"Two days later, P.M. returned to the clinic with her boyfriend. The abortion was performed by an injection of a saline solution. P.M. told appellant that she planned to deliver the fetus in a motel, and understood him to agree to this course."

"P.M. went to a motel. Alone, she aborted her fetus in the motel bathroom 48 hours after the saline injection. She left the fetus, follow-up instructions, and pain medication in the wastebasket at this motel. Her boyfriend drove her home. Police found the fetus later that day and began an investigation."

"Appellant was indicted for unlawfully performing an abortion during the second trimester of pregnancy outside of a licensed hospital and was convicted..."

Yeah yeah, got him with the hospital requirement. Apparently finishing off your abortion in a motel room was a bit too deregulatory for the Supreme Court to handle. I don't know why, but some people do not like finding a dead baby in a trash can. It freaks them out.

Now it's true, when I leave used condoms in a trash can, people don't like that, either. "Ewww, gross. Condoms." Imagine falling into a vat of used condoms. Sick, right? What a nightmare. But even the most repressed Victorian doesn't calls the cops when she runs across a used prophylactic. "Wet condom! Spermies! Emergency!" Call the cops on used birth control, you're probably gonna get arrested for making a false 911 call, right? That's not my bad, that's your bad. You got OCD. I mean, who makes that call? Even in Connecticut in 1964, you got to figure nobody's making that call.

Dead baby, on the other hand? See one fetus in a trash can, all that high-falutin' Constitutional rights talk goes out the window. That maid was seriously unhappy. Probably she was some pro-life Catholic from Guatemala, right? Shocked to find a little baby cadaver in the rubbish. Hey, you got to expect that. You're not in Guatemala anymore. Welcome to America.

This is how we might be able to distinguish Griswold from Roe. People don't freak out about other people's birth control. Might be a little gross. But we wash our hands and we're good. But when you dump one tiny baby in a trash can, suddenly you've got four police cars and yellow tape over the scene. I don't know, Supreme Court. Looks like your constitutional right was a homicide investigation. Just sayin'.

You got to figure P.M was a little smarter than the Prom Mom. Although they both disposed of their babies in trash cans. Girls, come on. Use a little imagination. Did you try the toilet? Watch Rear Window for suggestions on body disposal.

Probably P.M. wasn't trying to hide anything. "Hey, I'm exercising my constitutional right to choose. Don't tell my parents." Anyway, the Prom Mom got 15 years. (Or 3 if you ask the parole board). In this case, on the other hand, we say P.M. is the victim.

No word on what happened to that dead baby, who doesn't even get initials. I guess they took him out of that trash can.