Gunshot abortion in my area of Hampton Roads.

From http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=100369&ran=66485

Woman charged with shooting self to cause abortion

Tammy Skinner is escorted from Suffolk Police headquarters Tuesday afternoon.

MICHAEL KESTNER / THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT By LINDA MCNATT,

The Virginian-Pilot © March 1, 2006

SUFFOLK — Tammy Skinner appeared fragile and in pain Tuesday afternoon when, supported by two detectives, she made her way slowly from police headquarters to the car that would take her to jail.

Skinner, 22, called police early Thursday morning and told the dispatcher she had been shot in the stomach. She was pregnant and due to give birth that day. The gunshot wound that police think was self-inflicted caused the death of her unborn baby girl.
After turning herself in Tuesday, Skinner was arrested and charged with illegally inducing an abortion, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and filing a false police report, police spokeswoman Lt. D.J. George said. If convicted, Skinner faces as much as 13 years in prison and a year in jail, plus more than $100,000 in fines.

Skinner’s father accompanied her to police headquarters and left about an hour before she was transported to Western Tidewater Regional Jail. She was later released on a $15,000 bond.
Cases in which a pregnant woman inflicts injury on a fetus are “very, very rare,” said Dr. Leah Bush, assistant medical examiner for the Tidewater Health District in Norfolk.

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See the complete Pilot, exactly as in print - View stories, photos and ads - E-mail clippings - Print copies Log in or learn more “I have never had a woman shoot herself in the stomach to kill her unborn child, and I’ve been doing this for 20 years,” she said.
Bush, who was out of town last week, said she didn’t participate in the autopsy on Skinner’s full-term infant, who would have been named Kysharia. Funeral arrangements are pending.
Diane Sanford, head of Women’s Healthcare Partnership in St. Louis and a noted expert on pregnancy and postpartum mental health, agreed with Bush.
“Yes, it’s fairly rare for pregnant or postpartum women to take the life of their child,” Sanford said. “Usually, it occurs when someone has a psychotic breakdown.”
That’s what Tammy Skinner’s father, Larry, thinks happened to his daughter. He said that she has been suffering from depression for some time and that it worsened in 2001, when her 23-year-old stepsister died of brain cancer.

Larry Skinner said earlier this week that his daughter’s mental health problems are as much of a concern as her physical condition. Tammy Skinner had surgery to remove the baby and for the bullet wound soon after she was taken to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.
Prenatal depression and depression throughout pregnancy can be as dangerous as postpartum depression, according to the “Expectant Mother’s Guide,” a printed and online resource for women.

In the United States, Sanford said, women are often criminally prosecuted rather than offered mental health treatment. It’s different in other countries.
“In England, if a mother kills her child within the first two years of the child’s life, she is not prosecuted; she’s given mental health treatment,” Sanford said.
In 1994, a 19-year-old Florida woman shot herself in the stomach when she was 25 weeks pregnant. The baby, who was hit in the wrist, died 15 days later of organ failure.
The mother was charged in the death of her child but not prosecuted after the state Supreme Court refused “to pit woman against fetus.”
In Tammy Skinner’s case, she was found about 4 a.m. at a North Main Street car dealership. Her car, with a red stain in the seat, was later towed. She told police at that point that she couldn’t remember where she was shot or who did it.
George would not say if police had found the gun used in the incident.
Lynette Lowe, Skinner’s neighbor on Nancy Drive, told police that her friend was at her apartment about 3 a.m. on the morning of the shooting.
Lowe, who has lived next door to Skinner for about four years, said she was shocked when she heard about the charges.

“I don’t believe it,” she said. She wouldn’t comment about Skinner’s mental state that night.
Skinner, while walking to the police car on Tuesday, declined to reply to reporters’ questions.
George said that police don’t expect any further charges against her or anyone else.
Reach Linda McNatt at (757) 222-5561 or linda.mcnatt@pilotonline.com.
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