What do pro-choicers have to say for Remee Lee?

By now it’s likely you’ve heard about Remee Lee. Upon finding out that Remee was pregnant, and planned on keeping a baby which he didn’t want, Remee’s boyfriend, John Andrew Weldon tricked her into taking a pill which caused an abortion. The case was covered  back in May and June, with reports that Weldon was being indicted under the Unborn Victims of Violence Act and was being charged with first-degree murder.

Unfortunately, if Remee was looking for any sense of justice with the father of her murdered child being indicted and making history, she is not going to get that justice. Weldon will be in court again on December 5, facing charges of tampering and conspiracy to commit fraud. Christina Martin provides a thoughtful piece on this tragic story and discusses how Remee shared her story with CNN, as well as how odd it may seem that CNN refers to her child as an “unborn baby,” even though the network does not always refer to a baby as a baby.

The Huffington Post provides more information, mostly to do with explaining the charges. The article is helpful in that respect. From the piece:

John Andrew Welden faces up to 15 years in prison and three years of supervised release when he is sentenced Dec. 5 on charges of tampering with a consumer product and conspiracy to commit mail fraud.

The article does mention the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, in one of the concluding paragraphs:

Welden could have faced a mandatory life sentence without parole if he had been convicted of murder under the “Unborn Victims of Violence Act,” a charge that was brought when he was first arrested in May. Prosecutors dropped that charge and added the mail fraud charge as part of the plea agreement.

Actually, I came across the article when looking to see what kinds of sites picked up this story. Sources mostly included local affiliates in Florida and pro-life sites. The Huffington Post was the one source I found which usually discusses abortion from a pro-choice standpoint.

The article’s title, and the piece itself, however, never mention abortion. Instead, it is said that Remee was “trick[ed] into taking a pill that caused her to have a miscarriage.” Not only is the term abortion never discussed, but that a child died as a result from whatever you want to call this criminal act is left out as well. The whole piece felt rather void of emotion to me. And yet The Huffington Post strikes me as a news source which can not only be opinionated at times, but powerfully so.

At the end of the article there is a video of Remee Lee doing an interview for ABC, as well as a slideshow of “Questionable Parenting.” Well, okay then. I don’t know about you, but that last inclusion seems a bit out of place to me.

If you read the comments for the article, there is some spirited discussion which takes place. Such spirit would have been nice in the actual article though. I have to wonder, why isn’t The Huffington Post, or any other pro-choice source lamenting Remee’s lack of choice?

A woman’s “choice” to murder her own child may be restricted by common sense life-saving laws passed in the states, and there’s certainly a lot of reporting and hoopla over that. But if you truly want to be consistently pro-choice, you need to speak for the women like Remee, who face forced abortions or abortions they are tricked into. The choice of such women, this life-affirming choice, is cruelly taken away. Even women who choose abortions of their own free-will can come to regret them and feel pain. We can only imagine what Remee then, who wanted to have her child, is feeling. Abortion hurts women and kills children. It especially hurts women like Remee.

This is not to belittle the experiences of women who have had abortions that were not forced. But I do believe in pointing to the pro-choice hypocrisy, that Remee’s story deserves special attention. If one truly wishes to be pro-choice, the call to arms for defending choice and being there for women needs to apply to women like Remee as well.