Woman Who Tried to Kill Her 24-Week-Old Unborn Baby With a Coat Hanger Released From Jail

State   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Jan 10, 2017   |   5:29PM   |   Nashville, Tennessee

A Tennessee woman accused of trying to abort her late-term unborn son with a coat hanger is out of jail this week after she pleaded guilty to a reduced assault charge, the Daily News Journal reports.

Anna Yocca, 32, of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, previously faced charges of attempted murder and aggravated assault against her child, who survived the attempted abortion; but earlier this year, prosecutors agreed to drop the murder charge and bring new charges against her.

New reports say Yocca reached a plea deal on Monday and pleaded guilty to attempted procurement of a miscarriage. She was sentenced to one year in jail, and other charges against her were dismissed as part of the deal, according to USA Today.

Here’s more from the Daily News Journal:

Yocca received credit for time served, meaning she had served the entirety of her sentence while waiting for her trial, according to court documents. She had remained in jail since Dec. 9, 2015, on $200,000 bond from the first charge.

The final charges against her, all felonies, carried a possible sentence of six to 24 years in prison and fines up to $18,000 when combined. She pleaded guilty to the lesser charge, attempted procurement of a miscarriage, which is a class E felony and carries a sentence of one to six years in prison and a $3,000 fine.

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In September 2015, Yocca was 24-weeks pregnant with her son when she allegedly filled a bathtub with water, untwisted a wire coat hanger and stuck it into her womb in an alleged attempt to kill her unborn child in a late-term abortion, LifeNews reported.

Afraid after seeing the amount of blood, Yocca called her boyfriend who took her to the hospital, according to authorities. Later, she gave birth to her son who weighed 1.5 pounds; and doctors were able to save the baby boy’s life.

However, the coat hanger damaged the boy’s brain, lungs, eyes and heart; and doctors expect he will have to have continued medical care for the rest of his life, according to CBS News. The baby later was placed in state custody. LifeNews could not find any recent updates about the baby’s condition.

Abortion advocates have been defending Yocca. In December during her arraignment hearing, pro-abortion protesters filled the courtroom and chanted, “Abortion is not murder,” according to The Daily News Journal.

In December 2015, the pro-abortion blog Think Progress sympathized with Yocca, claiming that she could not find an abortion clinic close enough that would help her abort her unborn baby.

“There is no abortion clinic in Yocca’s town of Murfreesboro, TN, so she would have had to drive the 45 minutes to Nashville for a legal procedure,” according to the blog.

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