Georgia Women Get Probation, Community Service in Forced Abortion Case
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
October 7, 2008
Columbus, GA (LifeNews.com) — Two Georgia women received community service and probation in a case involving their attempt to force a young woman to have an abortion. Police arrested the mother and two cousins of a 16-year-old girl in September 2006 after they tried to force her to drink turpentine to kill her baby.
In the case, 44 year-old Rozelletta B. Blackshire was charged with cruelty to a child and criminal abortion Columbus Police Sgt. Debra Bohannon indicated.
The teenager’s cousins, 26 year-old Shonda Y. Blackshire of Columbus and 28 year-old Monica M. Johnson of Eufaula, Alabama, were also arrested and charged with attempting to cause a criminal abortion.
Blackshire and Johnson pleaded guilty to the criminal abortion charge on Tuesday and the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer indicated they both will receive two years probation and 40 hours of community service.
Rozelletta Blackshire, the girl’s mother, is still in prison on unrelated charges.
The teenager was reportedly three months pregnant at the time of the attempted forced abortion. There is no word on her health or that of her unborn child, but Bohannon said at the time she didn’t think the incident could cause medical issues for either.
"There’s no medical evidence that would support you could induce an abortion by giving her turpentine," Bohannon told the Associated Press. "Still, it’s not made to ingest. It’s not good to ingest."
Blackshire and the cousins forced the girl to drink turpentine twice between September 12 and September 20 and Bohannon indicated they may have tried to force her to have an abortion because they were supposedly worried about an unrelated health problem the pregnancy could have impacted.
Police found out about the attempted forced abortion after the girl told her school guidance counselor about it. They had already been monitoring the girl, who may have been the victim of sexual assault and that act could have led to her pregnancy.
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