Whose Choice- Court's or Convict's?

U.C. student makes bail, will continue pregnancy

By Stacy Lavilla and Associated Press

A U.C. Berkeley student who ran afoul of the law has galvanized national attention-not because of her conviction in a credit card scam, but because she claimed that she was sent to jail to prevent her from getting an abortion.

Yuriko Kawaguchi, 21, had protested the six-month imprisonment handed down this month, saying it was designed to prevent her from terminating her pregnancy.

However, after being freed from Cuyahoga County Jail on bail last week, Kawaguchi decided to have the baby, in part because Ohio hospitals and clinics will not perform an abortion on her for fear of being past the legal limit of 22 weeks, and Kawaguchi is now 22 to 24 weeks into her pregnancy. INS officials, meanwhile, have said the Japanese citizen could not be deported for her conviction.

"It's a little bit hard, because for the last five months I wanted the exact opposite," Kawaguchi said at a news conference. "But because I will be carrying this baby to term I will be trying to the best of my powers to give the child everything that it needs."

Kawaguchi, who was overcome by tears, said Common Pleas Judge Patricia Cleary "stripped me of any chance I had to taste real freedom-the liberty to control my body and my destiny."

Though Kawaguchi was arrested May 26 for using a bogus credit card, after which she pleaded guilty to a scheme involving two others and thousands of dollars in transactions. She asked for probation so she could have an abortion.

Instead, Cleary gave Kawaguchi a six-month term, with four months' credit for time served, saying that the sentence was merited by the severity of the crime. Moreover, she kept Kawaguchi in custody pending appeal, saying she posed a flight risk.

Kawaguchi's lawyers immediately appealed to the state's 8th District Court of Appeals, which ruled that she could be released after posting 10 percent of a $15,000 bond. Less than two hours later, Kawaguchi was released.

Of the woman's release, Cleary said: "I'm not going to be a hypocrite. I think it worked out swell if that was her desire, to abort her child that late."

Since being freed, Kawaguchi, a clinical dietetics major at the University of California at Berkeley, has been in touch with her estranged boyfriend, according to Linda Rocker, Kawaguchi's attorney.

Though Cleveland Right to Life has offered her medical care, food, shelter and assistance in putting the baby up for adoption.Kawaguchi says she doesn't want help from abortion foes.

Rocker said she plans to file a lawsuit in federal court against Cleary, the state and the county within the next week. Rocker added that Cleary violated Kawaguchi's right to have an abortion by sentencing her to six months in prison for forgery, saying most such offenders receive probation.

Kawaguchi said she was "pretty much shell-shocked" to be out of jail. What got her there in the first place was a scheme in which she and two accomplices bought more than $16,000 worth of airline tickets, computers and meals with bogus credit cards, according to Assistant County Prosecutor George Sadd.

Mark Hansen, deputy district director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said his agency determined that Kawaguchi, a permanent resident, could not be deported.

Meanwhile, Asian Americans on both sides of the abortion issue responded strongly to Cleary's sentence.

Yin Ling Leung, executive director of Asian and Pacific Islanders for Reproductive Health, said the judge had clearly inflicted anti-abortion views on the former inmate. "I think she is imposing obviously her conservative values ... and I don't think that's right," Leung said. "It's not like this woman was going to run away."

But Gloria Apolinario, a Sacramento Republican, said it wasn't fair to assume that the judge allowed personal views on abortion to influence her decision.

"I think the judge was more thinking about the law more than anything else," said Apolinario, who is also against abortion. "I think the judge was thinking that, although she probably has a lot of emotional issues about it.

"In total, I think she is just doing what she is there for, and that is following the law." Apolinario added that she wasn't surprised about Kawaguchi's possible change of heart.

"She probably felt that there was this live person inside of her ... It can change your mind if you really give it a chance," Apolinario said. "Obviously the time she was given to think about it helped her change her mind."

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