Dozens of elected prosecutors said Friday they would refuse to prosecute those seeking, assisting or providing abortions after the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 ruling that guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion.
Prosecutors from 29 states, territories and Washington, D.C., signed a joint statement that included signatories from states like Mississippi, Missouri and Wisconsin that have banned or are poised to ban abortion services following the reversal of Roe v. Wade.
“Not all of us agree on a personal or moral level on the issue of abortion,” said the statement signed by 84 prosecutors, a group that included district attorneys and state attorneys general. “But we stand together in our firm belief that prosecutors have a responsibility to refrain from using limited criminal legal system resources to criminalize personal medical decisions. As such, we decline to use our offices’ resources to criminalize reproductive health decisions and commit to exercise our well-settled discretion and refrain from prosecuting those who seek, provide, or support abortions.”
The prosecutors said enforcing abortion bans would also “hinder our ability to hold perpetrators accountable, take resources away from the enforcement of serious crime, and inevitably lead to the retraumatization and criminalization of victims of sexual violence.”
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