Abortion -Yes. Mercy- No

The Supreme Court turned down an appeal Monday from a county sheriff who objects to transporting jail inmates for elective abortions.

An Arizona sheriff wanted the justices to allow him to enforce a jail policy that bars transporting inmates for abortions without a court order. Arizona courts said the policy violated the inmates’ constitutional right to an abortion.

So the prison has to take a woman to get an abortion but meanwhile in a federal prison, there’s a man named Jason Yaeger who has nearly a year left to serve on a 5½-year sentence for a methamphetamine conviction. But Jason’s 10 year old daughter is dying of brain cancer and is not expected to live long enough to see her father be released from prison. The girl’s health is rapidly declining and her doctors say that nothing can be done to save her.

The girl’s wish is to have her father by her side before she passes.

Although this request seems simple enough, the warden has denied repeated requests.

Said the father in news reports: “I am sorry for what I have done…I’m not asking to get out of my sentence — just to go from one place of imprisonment to another so I can be with my family. Jayci is sitting in a hospice fighting for her life and [her mother] thinks she is holding on for me to get there. She wants me and needs me and I want to be there with her on her last day.”

Look, you’re not going to find a more law and order guy than me but give me a little break here. Can’t we admit that the world has turned upside down when a woman inmate is given the right by court order to go get an abortion while a non-violent offender who’s going to be released to a halfway house in August is refused the right to visit his dying daughter.