Police raid clinics in the Dominican Republic

Yet another story about what life is like for women in “pro-life” countries:

Two months pregnant and bleeding, Yanira Then says she went to a clinic in her low-income Santo Domingo neighborhood, where her doctor said she had suffered a miscarriage.
Then was still in her hospital gown that February morning when her doctor’s office was stormed by police, prosecutors and television news cameras. Accused of having had an abortion, Then, a 27-year-old law student, was arrested along with two other patients, the nurses and her physician.
She faces 3 to 10 years in prison. The doctor faces 50.

Can you think of any clearer way to send the message, “Your body is public property”?
Yanira Then is accused of attempting to induce abortion using misoprostol. This is a common reaction among women in countries where abortion is illegal. They induce abortion at home — using pills like misoprostol or sometimes more violent means — and then seek a doctor’s treatment for miscarriage. Doctors are often put in the position of letting these women die of infection or blood loss, or facing prosecution for assisting in abortion.
This story is also a reminder that criminalizing abortion doesn’t make it stop. The abortion rate in the Dominican Republic is 44 per 1,000 women — more than double the rate in the U.S., where abortion is legal (though not always available). The DR is currently considering revisions to its penal code to permit abortion in cases of rape or incest.

Santo Domingo District Attorney Jose Manuel Hernandez denied any connection between the arrests and the penal code proposals, but added that he did hope to instigate a debate on issues such as allowing condom distribution or the morning-after pill. […]
“This is a matter of public health, and we have to determine what our public health policy is,” he said in an interview. “The discussion has begun. That’s what we wanted.”

In other words, they staged a police and media raid on a clinic where they further traumatized a woman who had just had a miscarriage, all to “instigate a debate” about contraception. Clearly, this man couldn’t care less about the actual women, like Yanira Then, who are affected by his nation’s public policy. She’s just a rhetorical device.
Via Repro Rights Law Prof blog.