Irrespective of Circumstances: Pro-Life Rubio Thinks Abortion Shouldn't be an Option for Rape Victims

by Nomad

GOP establishment might be banking on Marco Rubio but his total-restriction views on abortions actually represent a mere 19% of the American people.  

No Exceptions Marco

Last year a Gallup poll suggested that a narrow majority of Americans (51%) felt that abortion should remain legal under certain circumstances. Twenty-nine percent, however, said that abortion should be legal under all circumstances. 

The lowest percentage of the respondents (19%) said that abortion should be illegal under any and all circumstance. Ordinarily, this absolute limit refers to conditions where the mother's life is in danger or pregnancy following a rape or incest. 

That absolutist restrictive poition has always been the extremes of the pro-life movement. In fact, the SCOTUS' Roe vs. Wade decision originated from a rape case. (The ruling, however, did not revolve around that particular circumstance.)

On Sunday, the GOP establishment's latest hope, Marco Rubio revealed that, if elected- he would only very reluctantly sign a anti-abortion bill that provided an exception for rape and incest cases. 

His position pits the candidate against a full 81% of the American electorate.

Miscarriage of Justice in Mississippi: The Michelle Byrom Case

by Nomad

The decision to execute Michelle Byrom has been called "gravely inhumane." As the date of her execution approaches, people have begun to ask how the state of Mississippi can justify the judicial murder of an innocent woman.

Fifty-six year old Michelle Byrom would become the first woman in 70 years to be put to death in Mississippi but that's not why her case deserves a closer look.  By any standards, this case represents a clear-cut case of miscarriage of justice. A writer for The Atlantic describes the situation like this:

This woman was horribly abused her whole life, up to and including her life with the murder victim. She was rendered mentally ill by this abuse. For 15 years, prosecutors and judges have known that it was her son who shot his father. And yet still the state relentlessly has sought to impose the death penalty. Mississippi wants its pound of flesh. But why from Michelle Byrom? What would it prove?

That moral outrage was echoed by The Natıonal Coalıtıon To Abolısh The Death Penalty. The organization has cataloged the multitude of problems with the Byrom murder trial. 

Michelle Byrom was charged with hiring her son’s friend, Joey Gillis, to kill her abusive husband in June 1999. She certainly had enough of a motive. After being sexually abused by her stepfather, Michelle was in many respects the perfect victim for a man like Edward Byrom, Sr. They had begun their relationship when she was only 15 and for 40 years, the often savage abuse became a regular feature of her life. In many ways, it was the only life she had known. 

Nevertheless, despite this motive, Michelle did not kill her abusive husband. 

It is clear now that her son killed his abusive father. Her son confessed in letters to her and to a court-appointed psychologist that he committed the crime. Byrom’s son is free on parole, and the man she supposedly hired is free.... Edward Byrom Sr. was shot in his home, with his own gun.

Michelle was in the hospital with double pneumonia at the time of the murder. Even though Michelle was heavily medicated and in the hospital, the police pressured her to confess to the murder to save her son from "taking the rap." The pressure continued on this mentally ill woman until she confessed and added details about the supposed murder-for-hire.