Kirk here with an update on the case of Le Thi Thuy Linh, who is appealing her conviction for abandonment of corpses (she did not report the stillbirths of her twins immediately).
The Supreme Court heard the case recently, but I’m not aware at this writing of when the verdict will be issued.
I was interested in the support that Dr. Takeshi Hasuda of Jikei Hospital demonstrated for Ms. Linh by traveling to Tokyo and appearing at a press conference to call for the overturning of her conviction. Dr. Hasuda said that “if Ms. Linh is guilty, then almost all women who feel compelled to give birth in isolation may be found guilty of a crime” (今回の行為が罪に当たるなら、孤立出産の死産はほとんど犯罪とみなされてしまう):
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/0607c575943b43378599387950f27b01e58ceeae
This position makes perfect sense to me. In my view, failing to take the factors that led to Ms. Linh’s isolation into account and saying “she should have asked for help” would be a tremendous miscarriage of justice. And, it seems that I am just one of many – the following article (with extended video) reports that Ms. Linh’s case has received over 90,000 signatures calling for her aquital:
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/lnews/kumamoto/20230224/5000018365.html
Previous posts on this page about Ms. Linh’s case can be found here: