You've gotta ask?

rhetorical

adj 1: of or relating to rhetoric; "accepted two or three verbal and rhetorical changes I suggested"- W.A.White; "the rhetorical sin of the meaningless variation"- Lewis Mumford 2: concerned with effect or style of writing and speaking; "a rhetorical question is one asked solely to produce an effect (especially to make an assertion) rather than to elicit a reply".

Does this mean women should resort to shooting themselves? Of course not.

Then wy did they answer it?

Over 16 years ago in VA my best friend came home from college with an unwanted pregnancy. Our only challenge in getting her a safe abortion at a clinic was raising the $300 to pay for it.

"Virginia is for lovers." Indeed.

The Virginia law and consequent prosecutorial actions remind me of an old European law (I think it was France) in which attempted suicide was a capital offense.

Nice to see that Virginia has moved out of the Dark Ages and is now only a few hundred years behind the times.

It's too bad you have to die in order to win a Darwin Award.

In case she had shot herself & died, this woman would have been a real contender for the Darwin Awards. Definately, she would ahve made my top 10.

Why worry about this one "abortion that got away?" If you're so desperate to be amused by the consequences of our reproductive rights policies, there are plenty of women dead from attempted self-induced abortions to choose from. Because women suffering and dying are funny. We wouldn't want to deprive you of that pleasure, now would we?

What grieves me is that there were no women around her who could have helped her end the pregnancy more safely.

Are for removing yourself from the gene pool, not just killing yourself. So if you destroy your fertility by aborting with a gunshot to the womb, then yes, you're eligible for a Darwin Award.

And I don't have any sympathy for a woman who shoots a near-term fetus. If she'd waited a couple of weeks it would be out of her body and she could have given it up for adoption or dumped it on a hospital. If you're facing six, seven, eight months of your body's health being slowly destroyed over time, abortion makes sense. If you've already lived through most of your pregnancy hell and you have only a few weeks to go, it's not going to kill you to wait it out.

Yeah, she should have had access to abortion services earlier than that. And she's probably mentally ill, or she wouldn't have gone to such lengths. But Andrea Yates, the woman who bashed her kids' heads in with rocks because God told her to, and the woman who cut off her baby daughter's arms were all mentally ill, and I don't have sympathy for them either, or for women who jump out windows with their babies in their arms because they're suicidal and apparently if they can't live, their babies can't either. We don't cut men who murder their entire families and then commit suicide any slack, why give slack to the women who do the same thing?

Well, the only portion of the Virginia statutes which could potentially affect her, are those affecting medicaid coverage. That's a pretty small percentage of the population, and anyhow it doesn't prevent anyone from getting an abortion, it just means someone else isn't going to pay for it.

Funny what passes for repression of women these days. Help I'm being oppressed! The government won't pay for my shit!

Anyhow, I'm wondering what type of logic led this woman to making her CHOICE?

"I know, I'll get an abortion from a licensed physician."

"No, bad idea: Virginia recieved an "F" on NARAL's Report Card of states with respect to abortion law."

"A coat hanger?"

"No, too dangerous."

"I know! I'll shoot myself in the belly with a pistol!"

Someone else said:

"Darwin Awards are for removing yourself from the gene pool, not just killing yourself."

Good point. Where do I nominate her? Shooting yourself in the abdomen in order to get an abortion should be way up there. It is a reminiscent of the infamous 1999 liposuction tragedy. http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1999-60.html

The only flaw I see in this theory, is that, although Salon says that the woman "shot herself in the abdomen to induce an abortion", I'm not sure this was actually her intent from reading the article. Guess that needs confirmation first.

I'm not a lawyer, but I believe all states have the right to restrict abortion severely after viability, which is usually 24 weeks. What this woman did was infanticide, not abortion.