It’s Insane That Texas Highschooler’s Miscarriage Was Treated Like A Crime Scene

woodrow-wilson-high-school-dallasI owe Florida an apology. We here in Texas are attempting to steal the “State you most wish would catch fire float off into the ocean” from them with news out of my new city of Dallas today about some hardcore weird shit that went down on Friday. It involves a helicopter and a fetus, so let’s go on this journey together, shall we?

According to CBS DFW:

Staffers were called to an upstairs bathroom around 2:30 p.m. Friday. It was there that a deceased fetus had been discovered inside a bathroom stall. According to teens at the school, it was a student who alerted a worker.

”I think that there was somebody that had notified a custodian of a situation in a restroom,” explained Dallas Independent School District spokesperson Jon Dahlander. ”The custodian went and then made the discovery.”

It was at this point that Woodrow Wilson High School was “swarmed” with a massive police presence which included a helicopter or two because, hey, why the hell not? It was at this point that the bathroom was considered a crime scene, which is why so many cops were there.

The focus quickly shifted from the fact that there was a fetus in the school to what can only be described as a sort of manhunt as school officials attempted to figure out who the mother was. According to The Raw Story,

Dallas Police Department’s Child Abuse Unit detectives were investigating to find out who may have abandoned the fetus. The person involved was being considered a ”suspect.”

”We’re reviewing video, talking to the teachers, trying to determine if anybody has any knowledge of any student that may have had something going on in their life, and pray,” Dallas Police Major John Lawton said.

Wait, what? That is a huge jump from “person who may have miscarried” to “suspect”. Without knowing anything about the mother, it’s not outlandish to assume that she may be a high school girl who gave birth or miscarried on a toilet while alone and afraid. This kind of reaction is probably validating her decision to go through that alone, since suddenly words like “abuse” and “suspect” were being thrown around.

There is a high chance it was a miscarriage, in which case a representative from Baby Moses issued a warning of sorts:

Alan Elliott of Baby Moses Dallas explained to KDFW that the mother could have avoided any criminal charges if she had taken advantage of Baby Moses laws by carrying the child to term, and then dropping it off at a safe baby site like a fire station.

”And that’s a happy ending when that happens, because the baby is safe, the mother is protected from any sort of prosecution, so it’s a win-win for both of them,” Elliot noted.

Oh man. Apparently a good way to avoid prosecution for miscarrying is to carry the baby to term, so let’s keep that in mind going forward, shall we?

I’m astounded that so much attention was diverted from what the police in Dallas might have otherwise been doing in the city to a second-story bathroom in a high school over what is very possibly a spontaneous miscarriage.

The entire fiasco is surely making it clear to other girls that if they do get pregnant and miscarry, they’d better do a much better job of making sure that no one ever, EVER finds out. Otherwise a great deal of humiliation and potentially prosecution awaits them.

An update to this report by MyFox DFW said:

A fetus that was discovered Friday afternoon at an East Dallas high school was the result of a miscarriage, a spokesperson for the Dallas Police Department said Tuesday.
Police have ”spoken to all involved,” and the incident isn’t considered a criminal case, the spokesperson said.

Again, this doesn’t really surprise me. No matter what people may think of “kids these days” all of the immediate suspicion that something nefarious and malicious went down turned out to be unfounded.

I feel for the mother of this fetus. She probably carried the pregnancy in secret, miscarried alone, and then lived in fear as everyone tried to find her, all while tossing words like “crime scene” and “suspect” around. Is it any wonder she didn’t come forward?

This entire business is ridiculous. A pregnant teenager is a serious thing, and so is a miscarriage. But neither is a crime. How is it that you have to practically beg the police to investigate a rape, but they’ll divert a fucking helicopter to your location if there’s even the slightest hint that a pregnancy wasn’t carried all the way to term?

(Image: Facebook)

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