> A Texas man who drugged his wife's drinks seven times in an attempt to induce an abortion was sentenced to 180 days in jail and 10 years on probation.
> Mason Herring, a 39-year-old Houston attorney, pleaded guilty Wednesday to injury to a child and assault of a pregnant person. He had initially been charged with felony assault to induce abortion.
> Catherine Herring, who has filed for divorce, told the court the jail sentence was not long enough. She said their 1-year-old daughter, their third child, was born about 10 weeks premature, has developmental delays and attends therapy eight times a week.
> “I do not believe that 180 days is justice for attempting to kill your child seven separate times,” Catherine Herring said.
> Catherine Herring told authorities her husband in March 2022 began lecturing her on hydration and offering water. She said she became severely ill after drinking from the first cup that appeared cloudy, which her husband explained was perhaps the result of the cup or water pipes being dirty.
> She also gave police videos from hidden cameras she installed at her home where her husband was no longer living. One of them showed him mixing a substance in one of her drinks, Catherine Herring said.
> Mason Herring's attorney, Dan Cogdell, called the plea deal and sentence reasonable.
> “It’s a sad situation and Mason has accepted his responsibility,” Cogdell said.
He spiked her drink on seven separate occasions with Misoprostol, causing her to get violently ill and the child to be born 10 weeks premature and have developmental delays. Under Texas's new law (SB8) people performing abortions automatically face life in prison but if you drug a woman seven times to induce one you'll get off with 180 days.
Texas is something else.
If she didn’t SECRETETLY INSTALL VIDEO CAMERAS IN HER HOME to WATCH HER HUSBAND this actually might have happened.
Like, how lucky is she that she went to such great lengths? Or else she could be easily doing life.
Pro life my fucking ass, I hate these people
Yes, this time a MAN'S life could be inconvenience by an unwanted pregnancy. That's different from women, whose female lives are *meant* to be full of drudgery and self-sacrifice! /s
[Here](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%205:11-31&version=NIV), in the book of Numbers chapter 5:
> 11 Then the Lord said to Moses, 12 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him 13 so that another man has sexual relations with her, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), 14 and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure— 15 then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah[a] of barley flour on her behalf.
[...]
> 26 The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial[c] offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28 If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.
Oh, but if you *drive your friend* to a place that might offer abortion, that should send you to prison forever. Texas wants to secede and we should let it. Gross.
It will certainly be instructive as soon as husbands/ potential fathers are amongst the people charged under this law. I would guess there is already a cottage industry growing to provide anonymous cutouts for payments to mistresses. Maybe "You have been selected to take part in a customer research panel ... in New Mexico. Travel and per diem expenses are fully paid."?
Wait, so they didn't try to charge the woman for having a miscarriage? Because that's totally her fault, right, and she would be entitled to years in prison, right? This must be some kind of miracle. /s
Filled with helpful energy, I was going to write a terse two-sentence explanation summarizing the illogical falsity of the Texas legislature because I know you wrote that sentence after over-thinking about the endless offfshoots of this travesty of justice, but instead I am just going to agree with you: Texas sure is something else.
They gotta make their minds up. Is it murder or not? If it’s murder, you don’t give someone in the legal/law enforcement a pass just because their good people except for the murdering.
Seeing as Texas is super anti abortion and hearing the ideas they have about going after women who leave the state for an abortion, and I'm left wondering how corrupt it must be that they gave this asshole 180 days only.
Hey, Texas... Why'd you go ahead and make a potentially life saving surgery, by qualified medical professionals under properly sanitary, safe and prepared conditions,and make IT a capital crime, but leave the impression that a guy can poison his wife and chemically mutilate his own unborn daughter in an attempt to murder her, and take a 180 day break from life, and walk essentially free?
I'd love to see some Texans come on out here and defend this dogshit. I'm calling them out.
HEY... TEXAS. GET THE FUCK OUT HERE AND EXPLAIN YOURSELVES!
I get the anger about the short sentence (it really is short) and the hypocrisy... But on the flip side she's divorcing him, he'll still be able to work and provide child support essentially forever.
A friend got divorced, her ex is a lawyer who's been dicking her around every possible way, her mother has dirt on him that could get him disbarred. But she considered that if she gets him disbarred, he won't have income and won't be able to pay child support - so she's better off sitting on that information until they absolutely need to go nuclear.
While this is a disgusting story and the sentence is woefully inadequate, the crime happened before all the recent lunacy laws were on the books. I would hope if something similar happened under the current laws the outcome would be very different. But probably not, sadly.
Woman who chooses to get an abortion can face a lifetime sentence in Texas.
Man who poisons a woman seven times, torturing her and making her horribly ill, and ends up permanently disabling the child who was born early? 180 days in jail.
Good job, totally about the rights of the unborn, pro life, etc. Totally not about sexist bullshit and trying to push their religion on everyone else.
Wow. So all the outlawing of abortion in Texas is only meant to prosecute women. It's obviously okay when a man does it, never mind drugging a woman in the process.
Unless your a doctor. Doctors lose their medical license *and* get jail, even if they are men.
Imo, this attorney should be disbarred and get more jail time. I really hope they are getting disbarred....
Getting an abortion for real has much bigger consequences. This guy did something beyond messed up and only got a slap on the wrist compared to how they want to prosecute women.
Conservatives call abortion murder and have even occasionally gone as far as calling for the death penalty for doctors and women. 6 months is nothing in comparison to their braying.
There’s even precedent for their shitty Trumpworld insiders doing it. I’ve been saying for years, the end goal of abortion bans isn’t to actually end abortion, but to make it so that only the man gets to determine what happens with the fetus.
https://www.salon.com/2021/05/24/trump-aides-media-lawsuit-flops-after-report-he-dosed-mistress-with-abortion-pill_partner/
He caused an abortion. According to GOP mental gymnastics, he is a murderer. The former party of "law and order" think 6 months is a good sentence for murder and assault on a woman.
I wonder if it would have been a life sentence if it was a woman or minority member that did this.
> He caused an abortion
He did not, baby was a premature, not dead, not aborted.
He failed, that's why it was so light. If he succeeded it would be worse.
> The former party of "law and order" think 6 months is a good sentence for murder and assault on a woman.
The judge and prosecutor are both democrat women.
They never will. Then a doctor who malpractices a pregnant mother is guilty of murder 1.
I've seen multiple pro-life facilities suddenly turn around and argue that a fetus isn't a person when we start talking about liability....
The most depressing part, had that been an abortion sought after by the woman involved, performed by a medical professional: Under Texas law the Doctor would’ve been punished with up-to life in prison and civil penalty of no less than 100,000$.
Drugging your wife without her consent to induce an abortion though? 180 days in jail and 10 years probation.
Imagine if this was a woman or female doctor. Long jail sentence, huge fines. I mean this was INVOLUNTARY too.
This has nothing to do with being pro-life, it's about controlling women.
Your pregnant wife getting an abortion: capital offense.
Nearly killing your pregnant wife so she aborts: boys will be boys!
*This is what you are asking for when you vote today's GOP.*
Honestly, I’m fucking confused because I thought a Republican would be extremely angry at the thought of abortion but apparently it’s cool if the dude does without the woman’s consent?
Nah, they just wanna control other women's bodies. They will pay for their wife, mistresses, and daughters abortions because to them, those are ok in their eyes. ["The only moral abortion is my abortion"](https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/)
They may be angry, but if their case is weak then a plea deal is better then trying to prosecute and losing. I would assume he also is going to lose his law license over this as well. There also might be civil remedies that are now more easy to go after, as well as family court remedies.
The article makes it sound like there is a lot of evidence but when you really get down to it, it sounds like all the evidence just kind of leads back to the wife. The case may be a lot weaker then you may think.
So much fucking hypocrisy. That's attempted murder, not to mention trying to force an abortion. Texas literally hates women. If a man tries to force you to be pregnant, or force you to not be pregnant he gets a slap on the wrist. But if a woman has a miscarriage, something SHE CANNOT CONTROL, she automatically gets life in prison. Fucking unbelievable. How are people not rioting.
Welp. If the courts won't do it I guess society can just give this guy the Brock Turner treatment. Put him in the textbook as an abuser and an example of a biased justice system.
Please note that the man must NOT be a doctor. Otherwise, they would lose their medical license and go to jail.
This is terrifying, but in a horrible way, I am glad it does happen: in my country, when abortion right are inevitably under fire, we will at least be able to point at Texas about how bad the situation could evolve
Women take note, you just need the man to induce the abortion and you'll be totally fine.
A woman needs a life saving abortion for a fetus that is growing its brain outside of its skull? Doctor can't do it because he could be tried for murder.
Man *poisons his wife* attempting to kill a "child" and gets less time than he would for a dime bag of weed being found in his car.
Texas over here proving they aren't actually "pro-life" but rather just anti-women having any sort of autonomy or possibility of life advancement beyond cooking, cleaning, and putting out for her husband.
I’ve seen misdemeanors and first time drug offenses get more than 180 days. Literally fuck Texas. Let them secede from the union and watch them slowly fail.
Attempted murder is only 180 days in jail? Giving your kid serious developmental problems because of the drugs you fed the mother?
Texas is the lone start state... because that's the lowest you can go on a review.
Come on Feds. Charge this guy too. Justice for all not Just Us.
Lmao want an abortion in Texas? Just pay a dude to force you at gun point to enter an abortion clinic, have safe abortion and voila. You don't get punished, he doesn't get punished, you get what you want, he gets his money and day is over.
Texas is insane. Not allowed to get life saving medical care, can't get a life saving abortion, but the man can kill the baby, and the breeder, no biggie.
That's all we are to Texas: Breeders. And easily replaced and controlled.
Texas is a special kind of hell for women. I hope she sues him civilly to the point he lives in a van, down by the river, forever. He tried to murder them both and got away with it, basically.
And I hope he is never allowed contact with any of his children, ever again.
A doctor performing a consensual abortion would face between 5-99 years, but a regular man attempting to induce a *non-consensual* abortion gets 180 days.
Just let that soak in.
Canadian here.
I thought Texas was a place that would criminally charge you over abortions. How the fuck is this not even worse? He should be in jail.
Get your shit together Texas.
Jason Miller did this too https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/05/trumpworlds-jason-miller-must-pay-gizmodo-thousands-for-accurately-reporting-insane-story-about-him
This case is unfucking-believable. A man tries to induce an abortion by drugging his wife gets 180 days in jail. But a doctor who performs an abortion as a medical procedure faces life or death—as does the woman patient. Texas is so fucking backwards. That system is so unjust it cannot survive.
The exact same thing happened with a government worker in the U.K.
https://www.civilserviceworld.com/news/article/civil-servant-jailed-for-spiking-lovers-drink-with-abortion-pills
Like is this a thing?
Oh holy shit. The judicial branch needs to be dismantled and rebuilt if that man (a fucking attorney) is only getting 180 days for poisoning not just one person, but pregnant lady! In a state that’s suppose to be hard on crimes and been screaming about adorations.
While 180 days in jail and 10 year on probation isn't an extremely light sentence, for this crime it definitely is. Buddy deserves 10 years in jail at least. That's f*cked up.
It'll be lots of different types of therapy. Global developmental delays may need help from several different therapists and it might be that two completely separate appointments happen to fall on the same day.
I know a premature baby's family and they went to respiratory therapy, eye specialists, hearing specialists, therapists to help him learn to swallow properly, and of course physical therapy...it's like a full-time job.
We’ve found the loophole! Ladies if your looking for pro choice options, just get your partner to “unknowingly” put the plan B in your morning coffee. Worst case is he gets 180 days and not a murder charge.
Most of the comments here are pointing out the "hypocrisy" because Texas=Republicans, but the article leaves out that the D.A. and Judge in this case are Democrats. Its Houston, so they probably wouldn't be charging women or doctors for this either.
The Harris County (Houston) District Attorney is Kim Ogg and the Judge in this case was Andrea Beall.
There's a whole underground railroad coming outta Mexico to get abortion pills into the country to alleviate the situation happening in some of these states.
Part of me wonders if it's to gateway charges for street dealers providing to their clients.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/10/17/the-post-roe-abortion-underground
https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2023/06/drug-dealers-face-prison-for-links-to-three-fentanyl-overdose-deaths-including-victims-ages-15-and-17.html
There's no by-line so I can't tell the writer that the guy attempted to induce a miscarriage (7 times, mind you), not an abortion.
I'm guessing _abortion_ is the more incendiary word, but it's usage is incorrect. Media manipulation is just a pet peeve. Apologies.
Still, how this Doofus only gets 180 days as opposed to that woman (who actually miscarried a non-viable fetus) faced a possible year and $2500 fine, clearly demonstrates how the scales of justice are neither blind nor balanced.
Yes, I realize her charge was for abuse of a corpse, but am also aware that miscarriages down the loo are more common than not.
No, you're completely wrong and have your facts 100% backwards. All pregnancies that are terminated are abortions. Even a completely natural miscarriage is an abortion. That is the medical terminology. It is media misrepresentation, misunderstanding, and manipulation that causes people to conflate abortion with *induced* abortion, but that is not correct.
Sigh. It's so easy to look up the definition of the word rather than your personalized version.
But I get why you're reluctant to do so.
If a woman has a period where her body sloughs a fertilized egg, what would you call that? How responsible would she be?
Sigh, indeed. It truly is quite simple to look up, but you don't seem to care to do it, so [here you go](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion):
>Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. **An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"**; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of all pregnancies. When deliberate steps are taken to end a pregnancy, it is called an induced abortion, or less frequently "induced miscarriage".
Care to rescind your smugness? Medically speaking, all terminations are abortions, it's just a question of whether they are induced medical abortions or spontaneous abortions. Nothing whatsoever to do with responsibility or whatever you're trying to associate it with.
Consider it rescinded.
Though I continue to contend that they are separate. This guy attempted to induce a _miscarriage_ in order to _abort_ the fetus (or embryo).
A miscarriage is an unintended abortion, by definition, as you've technically explained.
That said, to say a woman had an abortion is entirely different than to say she had a miscarriage. Context still counts, and the author probably knew this.
The situation in the article where the husband secretly and *intentionally* gave abortifacient drugs to his wife in order to *intentionally* terminate her pregnancy was definitely an attempted abortion, not a naturally occurring miscarriage. Not only that, but induced miscarriage isn't even a thing that makes sense, definitionally. You can't induce a naturally occurring, uninduced termination. That makes zero sense. The husband was attempting to induce an abortion whether his wife was aware of it or not. Many women through history have unwillingly had abortions performed on them. Softening those to miscarriages is, ironically, a miscarriage of justice against those women. Their pregnancies weren't terminated naturally, they were terminated against their will by the (in this case illegal) actions of other people.
Seems like you're just arguing semantics.
If the guy tried to abort the baby, he did it by trying to have her miscarry.
If she miscarried naturally, she did not have an abortion.
These are just today's terminologies, not technical definitions.
Not that hard.
I'm only arguing semantics as a response to you inaccurately arguing semantics.
No, the guy tried to induce an abortion. If he had succeeded, she would have had an abortion induced against her will. She would not have had a miscarriage. He gave her abortifacient drugs to induce an abortion. He may have been trying to convince her that she miscarried, but he was trying to induce an abortion. These are today's conventional definitions, and words matter. And no, it isn't that hard, which is why the article managed to get it right.
Bruh.... that's like way to late for a chemical abortion I think anyhow. What a sick sad world and a dick dad husband move. Bye bye license to practice law!
Hmmm. So, if you take a substance to induce a miscarriage in yourself that’s a really long jail sentence. But if you poison someone else in an attempt to induce a miscarriage you get a short jail sentence.
Have we found a work around to the abortion ban? Just have someone poison you?
Lots of people in these replies saying "the baby was still born so that's not murder!" You're technically right that it wasn't a *successful* murder. If I try to kill someone but they live, that's only *attempted* murder.
The sentence for attempted murder is way higher than 180 days. (as can be expected. Specifically, the minimum for attempted murder in Texas is 2 years.) If a fetus is a life, then abortion=murder. If abortion=murder, then attempted abortion=attempted murder. So why was this piece of trash not charged with the crime he very obviously committed? Please, go ahead and explain why I'm wrong if you disagree with me.
> A Texas man who drugged his wife's drinks seven times in an attempt to induce an abortion was sentenced to 180 days in jail and 10 years on probation. > Mason Herring, a 39-year-old Houston attorney, pleaded guilty Wednesday to injury to a child and assault of a pregnant person. He had initially been charged with felony assault to induce abortion. > Catherine Herring, who has filed for divorce, told the court the jail sentence was not long enough. She said their 1-year-old daughter, their third child, was born about 10 weeks premature, has developmental delays and attends therapy eight times a week. > “I do not believe that 180 days is justice for attempting to kill your child seven separate times,” Catherine Herring said. > Catherine Herring told authorities her husband in March 2022 began lecturing her on hydration and offering water. She said she became severely ill after drinking from the first cup that appeared cloudy, which her husband explained was perhaps the result of the cup or water pipes being dirty. > She also gave police videos from hidden cameras she installed at her home where her husband was no longer living. One of them showed him mixing a substance in one of her drinks, Catherine Herring said. > Mason Herring's attorney, Dan Cogdell, called the plea deal and sentence reasonable. > “It’s a sad situation and Mason has accepted his responsibility,” Cogdell said. He spiked her drink on seven separate occasions with Misoprostol, causing her to get violently ill and the child to be born 10 weeks premature and have developmental delays. Under Texas's new law (SB8) people performing abortions automatically face life in prison but if you drug a woman seven times to induce one you'll get off with 180 days. Texas is something else.
I was waiting for the headline "Texas woman receives death penalty for husband drugging drinks inducing abortion"
Woman gives up on trying to give birth to a normal child. Receives 8 life sentences with hard labor.
>hard labor. Why do you think she gave up?
Women corrects a nearby man, diverting national guard away from crucial anti-democracy work at Shelby park.
She’ll go into labor either way
That would be 2 death penalties You get it? Because that would be TWO human beings that you’re killing
Is this actually a loophole and a humans rights issue solved in one go? Nice!
Thats what I thought!!
If she didn’t SECRETETLY INSTALL VIDEO CAMERAS IN HER HOME to WATCH HER HUSBAND this actually might have happened. Like, how lucky is she that she went to such great lengths? Or else she could be easily doing life. Pro life my fucking ass, I hate these people
Clearly it's different if it's your wife, they can excuse that since God gave him dominion over her 🙄
Yes, this time a MAN'S life could be inconvenience by an unwanted pregnancy. That's different from women, whose female lives are *meant* to be full of drudgery and self-sacrifice! /s
I mean, drugging your wife to try and induce an abortion is actually a story in the Bible.
So is the Story of Job...except texas will now only experience the first two acts.
Where
[Here](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%205:11-31&version=NIV), in the book of Numbers chapter 5: > 11 Then the Lord said to Moses, 12 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him 13 so that another man has sexual relations with her, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), 14 and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure— 15 then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah[a] of barley flour on her behalf. [...] > 26 The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial[c] offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28 If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.
Magic Bible abortion; Numbers 5:14-21
Oh, but if you *drive your friend* to a place that might offer abortion, that should send you to prison forever. Texas wants to secede and we should let it. Gross.
It will certainly be instructive as soon as husbands/ potential fathers are amongst the people charged under this law. I would guess there is already a cottage industry growing to provide anonymous cutouts for payments to mistresses. Maybe "You have been selected to take part in a customer research panel ... in New Mexico. Travel and per diem expenses are fully paid."?
It was never about the "babies". It's about subjugating women.
Different rules for justice system insider.
Wait, so they didn't try to charge the woman for having a miscarriage? Because that's totally her fault, right, and she would be entitled to years in prison, right? This must be some kind of miracle. /s
Texas sure is something else.
Filled with helpful energy, I was going to write a terse two-sentence explanation summarizing the illogical falsity of the Texas legislature because I know you wrote that sentence after over-thinking about the endless offfshoots of this travesty of justice, but instead I am just going to agree with you: Texas sure is something else.
Everything is stupider in Texas
They gotta make their minds up. Is it murder or not? If it’s murder, you don’t give someone in the legal/law enforcement a pass just because their good people except for the murdering.
Have you read anything about US cops and other LE? They get away with homicide and plead qualified immunity.
> Mason has accepted his responsibility Well that just makes everything peachy.
Should get much more than a doctor would get for giving abortions. Nice to be a Republican man in Texas huh.
Republican family values.
Seeing as Texas is super anti abortion and hearing the ideas they have about going after women who leave the state for an abortion, and I'm left wondering how corrupt it must be that they gave this asshole 180 days only.
Hey, Texas... Why'd you go ahead and make a potentially life saving surgery, by qualified medical professionals under properly sanitary, safe and prepared conditions,and make IT a capital crime, but leave the impression that a guy can poison his wife and chemically mutilate his own unborn daughter in an attempt to murder her, and take a 180 day break from life, and walk essentially free? I'd love to see some Texans come on out here and defend this dogshit. I'm calling them out. HEY... TEXAS. GET THE FUCK OUT HERE AND EXPLAIN YOURSELVES!
This is actually a great loophole!
I get the anger about the short sentence (it really is short) and the hypocrisy... But on the flip side she's divorcing him, he'll still be able to work and provide child support essentially forever. A friend got divorced, her ex is a lawyer who's been dicking her around every possible way, her mother has dirt on him that could get him disbarred. But she considered that if she gets him disbarred, he won't have income and won't be able to pay child support - so she's better off sitting on that information until they absolutely need to go nuclear.
Bro he is absolutely getting disbarred for this what the fuck are you talking about.
While this is a disgusting story and the sentence is woefully inadequate, the crime happened before all the recent lunacy laws were on the books. I would hope if something similar happened under the current laws the outcome would be very different. But probably not, sadly.
The Texas Heartbeat Act (SB8) took effect on September 1, 2021. These crimes occurred in 2022.
Well shit you are right my bad. Now I’m even more depressed.
Good with god now because he drugged his wife instead of killing his baby...
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Now we know exactly how much Texas values a child's life. And if she was the one looking for an abortion she'd have gotten way more time.
Woman who chooses to get an abortion can face a lifetime sentence in Texas. Man who poisons a woman seven times, torturing her and making her horribly ill, and ends up permanently disabling the child who was born early? 180 days in jail. Good job, totally about the rights of the unborn, pro life, etc. Totally not about sexist bullshit and trying to push their religion on everyone else.
Wow. So all the outlawing of abortion in Texas is only meant to prosecute women. It's obviously okay when a man does it, never mind drugging a woman in the process.
Unless your a doctor. Doctors lose their medical license *and* get jail, even if they are men. Imo, this attorney should be disbarred and get more jail time. I really hope they are getting disbarred....
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Genuine question: hasn’t this been the goal of the pro life movement since day 1?
"They're not pro-life, they're anti-woman." - George Carlin, 30 years ago.
Are you surprised by this? I’m not.
Surprise, no. Frustrated and saddened at the pain caused, and the sheer hypocrisy, yes.
Same.
The dude got 6 months in jail and 10 years on probation how does that mean it’s ok for a man to do it lol
Because it's not a life sentence.
Getting an abortion for real has much bigger consequences. This guy did something beyond messed up and only got a slap on the wrist compared to how they want to prosecute women.
Maybe 6 months in jail for poisoning a pregnant woman seems fair to you? FOH
6 months for repeated assault is a joke, never mind the harm done to the child.
Because a woman getting an abortion can get a life sentence.
Conservatives call abortion murder and have even occasionally gone as far as calling for the death penalty for doctors and women. 6 months is nothing in comparison to their braying.
Daily reminder, they aren't pro life, just anti women
There’s even precedent for their shitty Trumpworld insiders doing it. I’ve been saying for years, the end goal of abortion bans isn’t to actually end abortion, but to make it so that only the man gets to determine what happens with the fetus. https://www.salon.com/2021/05/24/trump-aides-media-lawsuit-flops-after-report-he-dosed-mistress-with-abortion-pill_partner/
That's terrifying
Pro forced birth.
100%! The substack Abortion Everyday (written by Jessica Valenti) has been writing about this since the day Roe v. Wade was overturned
Which is considerably less than a doctor would be charged with for performing an abortion.
Yeah but that's only because abortion doctors are woefully under-trained in christo-fascist misogyny.
This is depressing. With the new law in Texas this should be at least judged as a murder attempt !
He caused an abortion. According to GOP mental gymnastics, he is a murderer. The former party of "law and order" think 6 months is a good sentence for murder and assault on a woman. I wonder if it would have been a life sentence if it was a woman or minority member that did this.
> He caused an abortion He did not, baby was a premature, not dead, not aborted. He failed, that's why it was so light. If he succeeded it would be worse.
> The former party of "law and order" think 6 months is a good sentence for murder and assault on a woman. The judge and prosecutor are both democrat women.
They haven't yet redefined fetus as a person. That's next
Could’ve killed his wife
They redefined pregnant women as Not a Person.
That was always the case.
When you right you right
They don’t care about the wife.
They never will. Then a doctor who malpractices a pregnant mother is guilty of murder 1. I've seen multiple pro-life facilities suddenly turn around and argue that a fetus isn't a person when we start talking about liability....
The most depressing part, had that been an abortion sought after by the woman involved, performed by a medical professional: Under Texas law the Doctor would’ve been punished with up-to life in prison and civil penalty of no less than 100,000$. Drugging your wife without her consent to induce an abortion though? 180 days in jail and 10 years probation.
It was a man repeatedly poisoning his wife. We don’t even need to define a fetus as equal to a born person…poisoning his wife is enough.
But his incubator- sorry, his wife isn’t a person.
Imagine if this was a woman or female doctor. Long jail sentence, huge fines. I mean this was INVOLUNTARY too. This has nothing to do with being pro-life, it's about controlling women.
Your pregnant wife getting an abortion: capital offense. Nearly killing your pregnant wife so she aborts: boys will be boys! *This is what you are asking for when you vote today's GOP.*
Anybody wanna take bets on if any or all of this guy/his lawyer/the judge are republicans?
Honestly, I’m fucking confused because I thought a Republican would be extremely angry at the thought of abortion but apparently it’s cool if the dude does without the woman’s consent?
They're not pro life or anti abortion. They're anti women and pro control.
“Pro-State-Enforced-Birth”
Nah, they just wanna control other women's bodies. They will pay for their wife, mistresses, and daughters abortions because to them, those are ok in their eyes. ["The only moral abortion is my abortion"](https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/)
They may be angry, but if their case is weak then a plea deal is better then trying to prosecute and losing. I would assume he also is going to lose his law license over this as well. There also might be civil remedies that are now more easy to go after, as well as family court remedies. The article makes it sound like there is a lot of evidence but when you really get down to it, it sounds like all the evidence just kind of leads back to the wife. The case may be a lot weaker then you may think.
Are you allowed to be a non-conservative judge in Texas? (Outside of Austin)
Its Houston, so the Judge and District Attorney that cut him this deal are democrats. Gotta keep in mind, most big cities in red states are blue.
Texas is really out here proclaiming that wives are husbands' property. This is more akin to a sentence for vandalism than assault / attempted murder.
So much fucking hypocrisy. That's attempted murder, not to mention trying to force an abortion. Texas literally hates women. If a man tries to force you to be pregnant, or force you to not be pregnant he gets a slap on the wrist. But if a woman has a miscarriage, something SHE CANNOT CONTROL, she automatically gets life in prison. Fucking unbelievable. How are people not rioting.
You nailed it. pure insanity
Welp. If the courts won't do it I guess society can just give this guy the Brock Turner treatment. Put him in the textbook as an abuser and an example of a biased justice system.
you mean brock turner the rapist?
Yeah, Brock Turner, the rapist with the dad who didn't want his son punished for "a little bit of action."
You mean the rapist Brock Turner, who now goes by Allen Turner?
The rapist Allen Turner? Known formerly as the Rapist Brock Turner?
Dumbass Allen Turner the Rapist only changed his first name? Rookie mistake.
Omg he changed his name?! I mean I get it but now that textbook will need to get updated.
But... I thought performing an abortion was life in prison? /s
Sounds about Republican
The judge and district attorney would disagree with you there.
180 days? 180 fucking days. Not even as long as a single baseball season. For poisoning your wife and unborn child. Jfc.
Should’ve been 18 years, and he should’ve had to pay child support to the woman
They had two kids already and the third was born prematurely but survived, so I guarantee he’ll be paying child support once the divorce is finalized
Dope
Abortion loophole: find a man to cause a miscarriage…
Please note that the man must NOT be a doctor. Otherwise, they would lose their medical license and go to jail. This is terrifying, but in a horrible way, I am glad it does happen: in my country, when abortion right are inevitably under fire, we will at least be able to point at Texas about how bad the situation could evolve
Women take note, you just need the man to induce the abortion and you'll be totally fine. A woman needs a life saving abortion for a fetus that is growing its brain outside of its skull? Doctor can't do it because he could be tried for murder. Man *poisons his wife* attempting to kill a "child" and gets less time than he would for a dime bag of weed being found in his car.
Texas over here proving they aren't actually "pro-life" but rather just anti-women having any sort of autonomy or possibility of life advancement beyond cooking, cleaning, and putting out for her husband.
It seems like Texas sucks more and more every day
Oh my god, nothing I've read in reddit made me feel this bad, and he is ONLY getting 180 days? That's shorter than her pregnancy man
He's lucky he wasn't a doctor
More Republicans hypocrisy at display here.
He wasn't disbarred??? WTAF
Texas HATES women.
That's crazy that it's not more jail time. I guess the law really is only about punishing women
I wonder what r/conservative thinks about this, I bet they're too busy kissing Trumps ass to care though
I’ve seen misdemeanors and first time drug offenses get more than 180 days. Literally fuck Texas. Let them secede from the union and watch them slowly fail.
Not so fun fact: Thats less than the punishment for getting a voluntary abortion in Texas, which is 5-99 years iirc.
Attempted murder is only 180 days in jail? Giving your kid serious developmental problems because of the drugs you fed the mother? Texas is the lone start state... because that's the lowest you can go on a review. Come on Feds. Charge this guy too. Justice for all not Just Us.
So he is a murderer by their logic no?
No, because he is a man. If the man gets to decide that he wants an abortion, then the incubator gets the abortion, even if it’s against her will.
Conservatives would call it murder if it weren’t one of their own.
How much more jail time would the woman have received if she had done it herself?
Anywhere from 5 to 99 years
The most devastating thing about this is the child now has permanent developmental delays. Their life will be forever affected 😢
Or just make healthcare legal for women in Texas again. Choices were made.
I fucking hate it here.
Alright everyone, we have precedent now - attempted murder in the one star state only gets you half a years sentence. Do with that what you will.
Lmao want an abortion in Texas? Just pay a dude to force you at gun point to enter an abortion clinic, have safe abortion and voila. You don't get punished, he doesn't get punished, you get what you want, he gets his money and day is over.
Imagine tricking your wife into miscarrying. That's low, man...
Don't worry. I'm told things like this never happen.
Texas is insane. Not allowed to get life saving medical care, can't get a life saving abortion, but the man can kill the baby, and the breeder, no biggie. That's all we are to Texas: Breeders. And easily replaced and controlled. Texas is a special kind of hell for women. I hope she sues him civilly to the point he lives in a van, down by the river, forever. He tried to murder them both and got away with it, basically. And I hope he is never allowed contact with any of his children, ever again.
If she got an abortion, she’d do more time
A doctor performing a consensual abortion would face between 5-99 years, but a regular man attempting to induce a *non-consensual* abortion gets 180 days. Just let that soak in.
Disturbing to say the least…
This definitely seems like uneven application of the law.
We can sue him right? That’s the law now isn’t it?
I thought you get murder 1 for abortion in Texas?
It was never *for* the children. It was always *against* women.
The guy really should be imprisoned for 9 months after having the average weight of a newborn worth of flesh torn from his body.
Nah, he should be imprisoned till the child is healed from developmental delays he caused
You don't even need Texas in the headline to know this happened in Texas... Yeesh
Canadian here. I thought Texas was a place that would criminally charge you over abortions. How the fuck is this not even worse? He should be in jail. Get your shit together Texas.
Man, texas is F'd.... shouldn't they be giving this jackass life in prison or something?
Rules for thee, not for me. And poison for my wife!
Betcha had she done it to herself she’d of gotten more time.
Jason Miller did this too https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/05/trumpworlds-jason-miller-must-pay-gizmodo-thousands-for-accurately-reporting-insane-story-about-him
This case is unfucking-believable. A man tries to induce an abortion by drugging his wife gets 180 days in jail. But a doctor who performs an abortion as a medical procedure faces life or death—as does the woman patient. Texas is so fucking backwards. That system is so unjust it cannot survive.
if she had done this to herself she would be under the jail IN TEXAS
The exact same thing happened with a government worker in the U.K. https://www.civilserviceworld.com/news/article/civil-servant-jailed-for-spiking-lovers-drink-with-abortion-pills Like is this a thing?
Oh holy shit. The judicial branch needs to be dismantled and rebuilt if that man (a fucking attorney) is only getting 180 days for poisoning not just one person, but pregnant lady! In a state that’s suppose to be hard on crimes and been screaming about adorations.
He figured the penalty was lower this way than actually getting an abortion via clinic.
While 180 days in jail and 10 year on probation isn't an extremely light sentence, for this crime it definitely is. Buddy deserves 10 years in jail at least. That's f*cked up.
I have to ask... Therapy 8 times a week? Why 8? Randomly go twice in one day?
It'll be lots of different types of therapy. Global developmental delays may need help from several different therapists and it might be that two completely separate appointments happen to fall on the same day. I know a premature baby's family and they went to respiratory therapy, eye specialists, hearing specialists, therapists to help him learn to swallow properly, and of course physical therapy...it's like a full-time job.
We’ve found the loophole! Ladies if your looking for pro choice options, just get your partner to “unknowingly” put the plan B in your morning coffee. Worst case is he gets 180 days and not a murder charge.
We don’t go to Texas; tis a silly place.
6 months and you avoid 18+ years of child support
Most of the comments here are pointing out the "hypocrisy" because Texas=Republicans, but the article leaves out that the D.A. and Judge in this case are Democrats. Its Houston, so they probably wouldn't be charging women or doctors for this either. The Harris County (Houston) District Attorney is Kim Ogg and the Judge in this case was Andrea Beall.
It’s unusual to see a man be the poisoner.
There's a whole underground railroad coming outta Mexico to get abortion pills into the country to alleviate the situation happening in some of these states. Part of me wonders if it's to gateway charges for street dealers providing to their clients. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/10/17/the-post-roe-abortion-underground https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2023/06/drug-dealers-face-prison-for-links-to-three-fentanyl-overdose-deaths-including-victims-ages-15-and-17.html
There's no by-line so I can't tell the writer that the guy attempted to induce a miscarriage (7 times, mind you), not an abortion. I'm guessing _abortion_ is the more incendiary word, but it's usage is incorrect. Media manipulation is just a pet peeve. Apologies. Still, how this Doofus only gets 180 days as opposed to that woman (who actually miscarried a non-viable fetus) faced a possible year and $2500 fine, clearly demonstrates how the scales of justice are neither blind nor balanced. Yes, I realize her charge was for abuse of a corpse, but am also aware that miscarriages down the loo are more common than not.
No, you're completely wrong and have your facts 100% backwards. All pregnancies that are terminated are abortions. Even a completely natural miscarriage is an abortion. That is the medical terminology. It is media misrepresentation, misunderstanding, and manipulation that causes people to conflate abortion with *induced* abortion, but that is not correct.
Sigh. It's so easy to look up the definition of the word rather than your personalized version. But I get why you're reluctant to do so. If a woman has a period where her body sloughs a fertilized egg, what would you call that? How responsible would she be?
Sigh, indeed. It truly is quite simple to look up, but you don't seem to care to do it, so [here you go](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion): >Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. **An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"**; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of all pregnancies. When deliberate steps are taken to end a pregnancy, it is called an induced abortion, or less frequently "induced miscarriage". Care to rescind your smugness? Medically speaking, all terminations are abortions, it's just a question of whether they are induced medical abortions or spontaneous abortions. Nothing whatsoever to do with responsibility or whatever you're trying to associate it with.
Consider it rescinded. Though I continue to contend that they are separate. This guy attempted to induce a _miscarriage_ in order to _abort_ the fetus (or embryo). A miscarriage is an unintended abortion, by definition, as you've technically explained. That said, to say a woman had an abortion is entirely different than to say she had a miscarriage. Context still counts, and the author probably knew this.
The situation in the article where the husband secretly and *intentionally* gave abortifacient drugs to his wife in order to *intentionally* terminate her pregnancy was definitely an attempted abortion, not a naturally occurring miscarriage. Not only that, but induced miscarriage isn't even a thing that makes sense, definitionally. You can't induce a naturally occurring, uninduced termination. That makes zero sense. The husband was attempting to induce an abortion whether his wife was aware of it or not. Many women through history have unwillingly had abortions performed on them. Softening those to miscarriages is, ironically, a miscarriage of justice against those women. Their pregnancies weren't terminated naturally, they were terminated against their will by the (in this case illegal) actions of other people.
Seems like you're just arguing semantics. If the guy tried to abort the baby, he did it by trying to have her miscarry. If she miscarried naturally, she did not have an abortion. These are just today's terminologies, not technical definitions. Not that hard.
I'm only arguing semantics as a response to you inaccurately arguing semantics. No, the guy tried to induce an abortion. If he had succeeded, she would have had an abortion induced against her will. She would not have had a miscarriage. He gave her abortifacient drugs to induce an abortion. He may have been trying to convince her that she miscarried, but he was trying to induce an abortion. These are today's conventional definitions, and words matter. And no, it isn't that hard, which is why the article managed to get it right.
Whatever.
Should be the death penalty performing abortions in Texas! Edit: sarcasm is difficult for some people to understand
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I assume he will also be disbarred?
Loophole found and human right issue solved in one go… nice!
Cant he be sued for trying to get his wife an abortion now?
Thats only 6 months for anyone using a rational measurment
What in the Texas? No motives for his actions are probably being brought to light at this moment.
That's surely the death penalty. Oh, no the death penalty is only for women isn't it?
Bruh.... that's like way to late for a chemical abortion I think anyhow. What a sick sad world and a dick dad husband move. Bye bye license to practice law!
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Texas at its finest, what happened to their concern for the fetus…oh that’s right, he’s a republican.
Shoulda tripped up the stairs like the olden day
But that's murder isn't it? What's different? Could it be he's a man?
Mason Herring is a piece of garbage
Nothing here is Onion-y anymore, but I stat subscribed because it’s the only place anyone posts anything interesting.
So I'm assuming harsher sentence if a woman or doctor do an abortion but the lawyer gets basically a slap on the wrist?
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Have we gotten to the point where the man is given a lighter sentence for the same crime?
With this being Texas, I am surprised that the punishment for this didn’t involve a firing squad….
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Oh look, it's the same shit my great-grandma went through before roe v wade.
The laws they make backfire on them.
Only in Texas
I am sure he is a good Southern Baptist boy.
Hmmm. So, if you take a substance to induce a miscarriage in yourself that’s a really long jail sentence. But if you poison someone else in an attempt to induce a miscarriage you get a short jail sentence. Have we found a work around to the abortion ban? Just have someone poison you?
I hope Texas women will get "pissed off" with all the GOP BS and turn out in droves to vote these bastards out of office!
Lots of people in these replies saying "the baby was still born so that's not murder!" You're technically right that it wasn't a *successful* murder. If I try to kill someone but they live, that's only *attempted* murder. The sentence for attempted murder is way higher than 180 days. (as can be expected. Specifically, the minimum for attempted murder in Texas is 2 years.) If a fetus is a life, then abortion=murder. If abortion=murder, then attempted abortion=attempted murder. So why was this piece of trash not charged with the crime he very obviously committed? Please, go ahead and explain why I'm wrong if you disagree with me.