Pennsylvania police in Polk Township have arrested Michael Lisk, 30, and charged him with rape and concealing the death of a child. The Pocono Record has some detail and the Police Criminal Complaint: Michael J. Lisk (PDF File):

State police were alerted to the case on Sunday after staff at Lehigh Valley Hospital treated the girl, who said she conducted the “home abortion” on herself using a lead pencil last Wednesday.

She subsequently became violently ill and began having contractions before ultimately delivering a baby at her residence.

According to the Morning Call, the Monroe County Coroner’s office is indicating that the male fetus was stillborn.

Coroner Dave Thomas ruled the cause of death as intrauterine fetal demise, meaning the fetus died in the uterus during pregnancy and before birth.

The coroner’s office does not rule on the manner of death on a fetus, and will not estimate how far along the girl was before inducing the abortion.

Michael J. Lisk, 30, of Polk Township is charged with raping the girl during a lengthy sexual relationship. He also allegedly retrieved the fetus, in a bag, from a tree where the girl threw it after delivering it on Saturday. He took the bag to Lower Middle Creek Road in the township and buried it there, state police said in an affidavit.

Police said Lisk had been having a sexual relationship with the girl since she was 12.

None of the articles about this horrific story provide any detail about this girl’s parents. One article indicates that her mother phoned Lisk from the hospital to inform him that the police were on their way. We don’t know if this girl’s parents were aware of the relationship with Lisk, or what their response would have been if the girl had gone to them to get the required consent in order to get an abortion. What we do know? This is what happens when a girl under 18 who needs an abortion lives in a state where parental consent is a requirement. This is what happens when the girl is unable to ask her parents for consent – whatever the reason is.

Kaiser has a chart and map which provides detail about which states require parental consent vs parental notification, or which states have no laws on the books, or no enforcement of the laws. If this young girl had been a resident in a state that did not require parental consent, she could have gone to a clinic and received a safe and legal abortion. Because she lived in a state that required parental consent, she chose instead to self-abort with a lead pencil.

This girl is lucky to be alive today and she will be incredibly lucky if she didn’t do permanent damage that will prevent her from ever having children later in life. She gave birth to a stillborn fetus alone in a bathroom at home because she was so desperate to abort and didn’t have access to a safe abortion.

That parental consent law doesn’t exist to prevent abortions – because it clearly does not prevent them. The law – written by men – exists to punish young girls for behavior those men deem unacceptable. Where is their outrage at the idea of a 13 year old girl self-aborting in a bathroom?