A Young Life Ruined

(Via Bitch)

At his girlfriend's urgings, Gerardo Flores, aged 19, stepped on her stomach to cause the miscarrage of the twins she was 16 weeks pregnant with. For inducing this miscarrage, he got life in prison, with parole only possible after forty years. He would be fifty-nine at the earliest before he could leave prison barring a successful appeal.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

How the hell did we end up here? We are effectively taking away the prime of Mr. Flores' life for doing what would be perfectly legal in a hospital. Does anybody doubt that this is setting the stage for de-legalizing all of abortion? Meanwhile, Gerardo Flores is their sacrificial lamb. He got a harder sentence than many if not most real murderers, a typical sentence being 20 years, of which they often serve just 8.5.

UPDATE: The persecutor freaks the hell out of me.

His girlfriend coerced him into it, Flores said in a taped police interview played at trial in which he demonstrated stepping on her. Bauereiss repeated the clip for jurors during his emotional closing statement.

No one would ever know the potential those unborn lives could have held, he said. Family would never get to see the boys' first steps, teach them to tie their shoes or take prom pictures.

Worst of all, he said, Flores' own children could not save themselves.

"Those babies could not raise their hands in self-defense to say, ‘No, Daddy, no, Daddy!'” Bauereiss said, emotion nearly choking his words. Basoria's family members sat a few rows behind him, tears rolling down their cheeks.

"Hold him fully accountable for this most unholiest of crimes," he finished.