Press Release
Oct. 4, 2009
Attribute all remarks to Kathy Ostrowski, Legislative Director, cell 785-250-4502
Inmate raped by Kansas state prison instructor coerced into abortionAccording to an expose in the Topeka Capital Journal, YWCA domestic abuse "advocates" misinformed a raped inmate at the Topeka Correctional Facility about open adoption law in Kansas, instead purchasing, and accompanying her to, a Planned Parenthood abortion.
Even purported "pro-choicers" should be screaming foul at forced abortion.
Kansans for Life asks legislators, with appropriate committee authority over state corrections, law and health, to:
- strengthen protection for women from sexual abuse inside prison confines,
- insure jail time for law-breaking state employees,
- restrain so-called victim advocates from promoting/ procuring abortions to inmates,
- review policies and issue guidelines for pregnant inmates, including adoption access.
Facts
30-year old Tracy Keith was raped in prison by a prison instructor, Ted Gallardo, in Oct of 2007, and was coerced into an abortion which still haunts her. Gallardo was eventually arrested by Topeka police, but spent only 4 days in jail and was sentenced to 2 years probation.
When she discovered she was pregnant, Keith’s reaction was to have the child but was told she was ineligible for an open adoption by a social worker working with the YWCA Battered Women’s Task Force. Keith wasn't informed a Topeka woman made inquiries about adopting her child. Instead, Gallardo was desperate to destroy evidence of his crime; he illegally smuggled morning-after pills inside the prison to Keith and had an inmate stomp on Keith's stomach in an effort to induce a "spontaneous miscarriage".
Keith claims there were hints that if she ended her pregnancy, the other inmates in Gallardo's contraband racket would not be prosecuted. Kansas corrections officials deny the prison applied abortion pressure on Keith, but it was a state vehicle driven by a corrections employee that ferried her to Johnson County’s Planned Parenthood for an abortion on Dec. 19, 2007.
Victimization
The story of Tracy Keith is heart-breaking. Lonely in prison, prohibited visits with her young son by her ex-husband and worrying about an empty bank account, she was an easy target for a calculating rapist, and inmate peer pressure to keep silent. Keith apparently now suffers from post-abortion trauma and unrelenting, vivid memories.
The ultimate blow was coercion to abort her unborn child by so-called women's advocates, who misled her about Kansas open adoption policy, even when there was a willing adoptive family. Such advocates sealed Keith’s misery by paying for an abortion that she cannot forget.
The day she was taken for the abortion, Keith was not making a free decision. Even under Roe, an abortion obtained under duress is against the law—specifically, assault and battery. Surveys of women report 62% of U.S. abortions involve coercion.
Women who have been raped are often coerced into abortion—seemingly for their own good. However, such women have described undergoing the abortion as a type of second “rape,” and an act of violence against an innocent child that they regret permitting. How much more miserable are women without the liberty to leave prison, whose sexual rights are stolen and then lose their maternal rights, through coerced abortion?
Wrong-headed abortion advocacy
It has been accepted for too long that pregnant women facing tough challenges --poverty, battery, substance abuse, disabilities, and prison —should welcome abortions. However, abortion is an act of desperation producing no positive health benefits, while consistently linked with increased suicide, substance abuse and long-term depression. Victim advocates were wrong to claim that “there were no resources” for Keith’s “plight”, so they had to buy her an abortion. There are 76 crisis pregnancy centers in Kansas that provide free support services for such women.
This prison scandal also shows how abortifacient pills are employed by angry men (and predators) who do not want women to give birth. Men buy the most morning after pills in the countries where they are available without prescription. If these pills weren’t available over the counter, girls and women couldn’t be forced or tricked into taking them.
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