The tragedies of Lizelle Herrera’s murder charge

The good news is that the goofy murder case filed against Lizelle Herrera in Starr County, Texas has already been dropped, just days after she was arrested for having some part in a self-induced abortion.

It was unclear, as of this writing, whether Herrera was the person who self-induced the abortion of her own child or was somehow involved with someone else. Details have been sketchy at best.

The one detail we know for sure is that murder charges have been dropped.

Yes, this is reason for celebration: A bit of stupidity was not allowed to stand. It should be noted that this is not a given. Stupid is standard operating procedure in some places (See: Legislature, Texas), so the fact that it was so quickly reversed is a win.

Unfortunately, this is not the end of this story, and it will likely get worse. Quickly.

The first injustice was that Herrera was arrested in the first place. What should have been a private, personal matter was broadcast around the nation.

It’s true that all information has been squelched since the charges were dropped, which is the reason we don’t know if the pregnancy was Herrera’s or someone else’s. That’s not good enough by half.

This woman will need protection from the crazies who would do her harm, or counseling or, quite likely, both. Only about 65,000 people live in Starr County, so hiding there is not an option. She will be known.

That personal tragedy is horrendous, but we should think what happens from here.

The Texas Legislature in its all-too-finite wisdom has taken away safe and legal means for getting abortions but it has done nothing to provide realistic alternatives, either when medical problems arise, or in cases of rape or incest.

Or, for that matter, when the mother simply does not want to have the child, whatever the reason might be.

Some might wag their tongues at the thought that a woman could get an abortion simply because she does not want the child. It does well for those people to remember that our society essentially abandons both women and children after the birthing process.

Getting a child born is the focus, seeing that the child has the proper support and the mother even a modicum of care, well, not so much.

Those who oppose abortion rights seemed to believe that if the procedure was essentially outlawed, then, voila, abortions simply would not happen. Well, no. Instead, women would look for all kinds of options, some of which could kill them. Other options might not kill them but could seriously damage both the child and the mother.

Do we really want to take away safe abortions and replace them with do-it-yourself pregnancy terminations? That surely was not the Legislature’s intent, not even this legislature with this governor (and, I should say, this lieutenant governor).

Lizette Herrera’s arrest adds yet another dimension for pregnant women to think about — especially poor, pregnant women.

Another new worry, along with all the other pressure they must be enduring. As a man I cannot begin to fully understand, and would never presume to know, how it must feel.

Just because the charges were dropped doesn’t mean it will happen the next time. Even if it is, the mother still had to go through the pain of the process of being arrested.

The handcuffing (most murder suspects are not treated gently), the booking, the fingerprinting, the collection of personal goods, the reading of rights, the placement into a cell, probably with another person she did not know and who might have been a true criminal.

At this point some of you may be wanting to point out that all of this happened in, ahem, Starr County, which is a darn long way from the Pine Curtain and that I should keep my mitts off this story.

Is there even one person out there who believes that this same scenario never would have happened in East Texas? Of course, it could have, and it is still possible.

Texas’ new abortion laws bring up the possibility for all sorts of unintended consequences, some of which we surely have not even considered yet.

We have not heard the last of this. When will our state learn to keep its hands — and its laws — where they obviously don’t belong?

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As a final word on this, let me refer you to a short novel by the admittedly strange author, Richard Brautigan, who killed himself in 1984.

The Abortion (available from Amazon and other booksellers) is of both fantasy — creating a bookstore where people can only check books in — and of the harshest reality, that of a woman getting an abortion in a Tijuana abortion clinic. Or, rather, that of a man, watching his girlfriend get an abortion.

The book is classified fiction but clearly it is not fiction. I’m sure what happened in the book — written in the 1960s — has begun to happen again today and that should make each one of us sick to our stomachs.

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Phil Latham writes another newsletter on Substack: American Slave Stories, which hopes to identify a few of those who did the back-breaking work of building America. It costs $5 per month for the weekly newsletter. Please consider supporting this effort.