New York Woman Charged with Crime of Self-Abortion

The New York Times: After Fetus Is Found in Trash, a Rare Charge of Self-Abortion, by Anemona Hartocollis:

A superintendent in Washington Heights was tying up a garbage bag on Tuesday evening when he felt an errant piece of plastic. He reached into the bag to put it in the recycling bin, and to his horror, he said, “that’s when I saw the baby.”

It was a fetus about six or seven inches long.

The police said Thursday that they had charged Yaribely Almonte, 20, who had lived in the building, with self-abortion in the first degree, a misdemeanor charge that has been used only a few times in New York State. Although it was unclear how old the fetus was, the charge applies when the abortion occurs after 24 weeks of pregnancy, when it is legal only if a woman’s doctor says her life is in danger. . . .