Letter Asks Prosecutor to Charge Ariel Castro Over Five Forced Abortions

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   May 16, 2013   |   5:22PM   |   Cleveland, OH

Criminal reports related to the horrific Cleveland kidnappings make it appear the first young woman kidnapped by Ariel Castro, Michelle Knight, was raped, impregnated and forcibly aborted by Castro at least five times during her more than ten year captivity.

Earlier this month, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty said his office intends to seek charges not only for the sexual assaults endured by the victims, but also “each act of aggravated murder he committed by terminating pregnancies.”

A letter from pro-life advocates to McGinty today asks him to do just that.

Today, national pro-life groups joined together to sign and deliver a letter asking Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty to file murder charges against Ariel Castro for killing five unborn children during the kidnapping of Michelle Knight, one of the three women he abducted. The signers of the letter want to communicate that they support McGinty’s intention to charge Castro for violating Ohio’s Fetal Homicide Law.

“We are outraged by Castro’s crimes and believe that he will be held accountable,” says Mark Harrington, Executive Director of Created Equal, who organized the letter.

He told LifeNews, “However, the deaths of these five children are of special interest to the undersigned, and up to now they have received little attention.  Now they will.”

Attorney Samuel Casey, a pro-life advocate who has been closely monitoring the case, said, “We believe that whether a child is in utero or ‘born alive’ — whether we call it fetal homicide or infanticide—it is a criminal action to take an innocent human being’s life.  The mother’s consent (particularly when it is coerced or uninformed) should make no difference to the existence of the crime being committed.  Whether the apparent motive is a commercial one (as in Kermit Gosnell’s case) or sexual abuse (as in Castro’s case), it should be just as criminal for a health care provider or a sexual deviant to kill a baby born or preborn because pregnancy is not a disease and induced abortion is never health care. ”

Harrington says that in 2002 Ohio adopted a state law that includes unborn children under murder, manslaughter, and assault statutes in non-abortion cases. He says Castro should be charged with aggravated and felonious assault against Knight and aggravated murder of her five children.

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The Ohio Fetal Homicide Law (ORC 2903.01) reads, “No person shall purposely, and with prior calculation and design, cause the death of another or the unlawful termination of another’s pregnancy.”