DNA From Pre-Teen’s Late-Term Abortion Matches Milwaukee Suspect

MILWAUKEE, WI — The case of a 12-year-old Wisconsin girl whose late-term abortion helped police track down an accused child molester illustrates some of the politics surrounding a medical procedure that most Americans say they oppose but reproductive rights advocates say should be preserved for victims of incest and rape.

In June 2016, the girl’s mother noticed her daughter was gaining weight and asked her to take a pregnancy test, according to a complaint filed in Milwaukee County Circuit Court. It came back positive, and the girl finally told her mother that she had been assaulted seven months earlier, in November 2015.

In Wisconsin, abortions are illegal after 20 weeks of pregnancy, so her mother took her to Colorado, one of a handful of states where late-term abortions are legal.

The fetal tissue was shipped to the Wisconsin Crime Lab, where prosecutors said it was found to be a DNA match to Anthony Kyle, 54, who is now charged with second-degree sexual assault of a child under 16, WISN-TV reported. If convicted, Kyle could go to prison for 40 years and face a fine of up to $100,000.

The television station said the Milwaukee County district attorney declined to discuss the case but said it’s “relatively rare” for prosecutors to rely on fetal tissue in rape cases. However, he said it can be a “powerful piece of evidence,” especially in cases involving children.

Kyle is expected to plead guilty to the charges next month, according to the television station’s report.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed the 20-week abortion law in 2015. It offers no exceptions for rape or incest but does allow late-term abortions if the mother’s life is in danger. At the time, he said that after 20 weeks of pregnancy, “it’s an unborn life, it’s an unborn child, that’s why we feel strongly about it.”

Wisconsin abortion foes want to ban abortion after 12 weeks pregnancy, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. The new proposal is one of seven anti-abortion bills before the state legislature this year.

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