When 18-year-old Kadyn Leo Swainston got a 15-year-old girl pregnant, his mother, Rachael, took them across state lines, apparently to a Planned Parenthood in Ontario, Oregon, for an abortion to hide the statutory rape.
"There's no evidence the abortion center ever reported the rape to authorities," LifeNews.com notes. "It was happy to accept payment for the abortion and return the victimized girl to her abuser."
David Ripley of Idaho Chooses Life says that appears to violate a new state law against transporting an expectant mother across state lines for an abortion.
"In this case, however, the crimes that took place — the sexual activity, apparently there are some drug issues involved here, and, of course, the transport of this girl to get an abortion without her parents' knowledge — as I understand it, it took place in May of this year," he explains.
Idaho's new law did not go into effect until July.
"The mother in this case is not being charged under that statute," Ripley reports. "She is facing a number of other charges, including kidnapping, but it does certainly point out the need for the statute, the law that the legislature did enact this year."
Following a Pocatello police investigation that was launched in June after the victim's mother contacted the authorities to report the rape, the Swainstons were both charged with multiple felonies.
The young man has been charged with rape, kidnapping and three counts of producing child sexually exploitative material. His mother has been charged with second-degree kidnapping, trafficking in methamphetamine, two counts of possession of a controlled substance — one each for possessing fentanyl and psychedelic mushrooms — and one count of harboring a wanted felon.
Both are due back in court on November 7 for separate preliminary hearings that will involve prosecutors attempting to prove there is enough evidence against them to elevate their cases from the magistrate to district court level for trial.
