Jennifer Nalley was full of life. “She was the kind of person who always helped the underdog,” said her mother. So, when her grandparents needed care, it was natural for the physics and math instructor at Texas State University to put her career on hold and move to Driggs, Idaho.
It was there that she found love, or so she thought. By early April she was pregnant with Erik Ohlson’s child. But as soon as he saw the ultrasound, he began pressuring her to abort, according to her family.
This scenario is not uncommon. According to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “a pregnant women’s risk of violent domestic abuse is 60.6% greater than a non-pregnant woman, with rates of abuse increasing as the woman gets further along in pregnancy.”
It seems that toxic men feel jealous toward a child who becomes the focus of a woman’s care. Often, this is coupled with a violent need of control. Text messages from Ohlson fit this profile.
He texted an acquaintance of Nalley, “She seems interested in having this baby without me except for when it comes to the money.” But her family insists she wanted neither child support, nor anything else to do with him. She only wanted away from him. But Ohlson wrote, “I want to strangle her and witness her last mortal moment. I want to see her beg for her life.”
Ohlson is charged with breaking into her home after midnight on July 5, 2016 and shooting her eight times as she tried to escape. She died at the scene, as did the child she was trying to protect. Now he is awaiting trial for a double homicide.
For more than two years, Ohlson’s attorneys have filed numerous motions for delay, change of venue and suppression of evidence. Most have been granted. The trial is pushed back to June 2019.
The most recent motion, heard on Dec. 7, seeks to dismiss the fetal homicide charge. Noting that, “A woman and her doctors can kill an embryo or fetus in the first trimester without repercussions from law,” he wants the court to grant constitutional immunity for killing his own child.
Such logic has a perverse ring of truth about it. But don’t look for the judge to agree. Arguments like this have been rejected by numerous courts in the decades since Roe v. Wade.
The contradiction between abortion law and fetal homicide law is a problem for logic, not for jurisprudence. When personhood is determined by a woman’s choice, and not from science, the contradiction dissolves.
Anthony Kennedy set this standard in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. He wrote, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life… A husband has no enforceable right to require a wife to advise him before she exercises her personal choices.”
Ohlson says that placing the entire weight of law upon one person’s choice is insane. In a way, he is right. I pray that one day this insanity ends and jurisprudence again acknowledges the science of human life and personhood.
But until that day arrives, the very least we can do is to make sure the mother’s choice to recognize her baby is protected at least as vigorously as another’s choice not to. That’s what fetal homicide laws do.
Contrary to the talking points from NARAL and the ACLU, legal protections for the unborn do not overturn Roe v. Wade. They exempt women and abortionists from prosecution. Rather than succumbing to fear, those who are truly pro-woman should be demanding laws that recognize a woman’s choice of life as well as abortion.
Choice is meaningless if only one choice is recognized by law. Jennifer Nalley wanted to keep her baby. It was a choice supported by science, by her family and by 84 percent of Americans. She wanted the law to recognize and protect her child.
Justice demands that her choice be honored. It would be grossly unjust if Ohlson were able to negate a mother’s choice even after she died protecting her child. But if he had killed Nalley’s child only a couple miles farther east, on the Wyoming side of the border, he would automatically be granted immunity.
Wyoming is one of only 12 states that do not recognize a woman’s right to choose her unborn child. Murder of a pregnant woman is punished more harshly than the murder of a non-pregnant person. But Wyoming law does not recognize a second homicide. This is unjust. Longer sentences do not make up for our state’s refusal to naming the crime for what it is.
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