Alabama has indicted a woman in the death of her fetus after she started a fight with another woman, who then shot her. The shooter was not indicted.
If this all sounds nuts, it’s actually perfectly logical in a place whose laws value guns more than life and the life of the unborn over that of the mother.
If Marshae Jones, the former mother-to-be, is guilty of anything, it’s of incredible stupidity in bringing her fists to what turned out to be a gunfight in the parking lot of the Dollar General store in the ironically named Pleasant Grove, Alabama. And all over some guy that she apparently shared with the shooter, Ebony Jemison, a man who was no doubt parking his car in some other spaces as well, if you get my drift.. Jemison had to know Jones was pregnant — at five months, she was surely showing — yet she chose to shoot her in the stomach. (Some accounts say she fired a warning shot that bounced up and hit Jones in the belly.)
Still, a grand jury chose not to indict, believing her claim of self-defense. But since the “ye sinners in the hands of an angry God” attitude of Alabama requires its blood sacrifice, that left Jones — who lost her potential child, her job and, in an unrelated incident, her house all in the same day — to be punished. She may go to prison for years, depriving her 6 year old of a mother. Hasn’t she suffered enough?
Apparently not. There are those who say Jones endangered her unborn child by starting the fight. She acted stupidly, recklessly, for sure. So did Jemison. Jones should’ve been charged with public brawling, fined and sent on her way. Jemison should’ve been dealt with more harshly since she used unnecessary force to defend herself. But when the law supports open carry and standing your ground and thinks of a fetus as a person — even though a fetus doesn’t have a name or a social security number — what is there to do?
We must begin with education, education that enables women to see at last that there’s more to life than men and having kids and working at dead-end jobs and shopping at dollar stores. Only then can we begin to change laws that are essentially asinine.