In human reproductive news

[hummingwolf]

Linking to a couple of blog postings here--one on the liberal side, one on the religious right. In both cases, the comments to the posts are very interesting. With no further commentary from me:

Story 1: It sounds preposterous to talk about criminalizing women who suffer miscarriages, but one Virginia legislator is proposing just that. HB1677, "Report of Fetal Death by mother, penalty" is a bill introduced by John A. Cosgrove (R) of Chesapeake. Cosgrove's bill requires any woman who experiences "fetal death" without a doctor's assistance to report this to the local law-enforcement agency within twelve hours of the miscarriage. Failure to do so is punishable as a Class 1 Misdemeanor.

Story 2: A Washington judge has denied a pregnant woman a divorce from her husband, who was incarcerated two years ago for abusing her. Shawnna Hughes, who separated from her husband after the attack and filed for a divorce in April, became pregnant by another man and is due in March. She now wants to marry the father of the baby. The judge has argued that the paternity of the child needs to be determined before a divorce can be finalized.

Comments

[darth-spacey.livejournal.com]

Story one is just an extension of the existing requirement to report a death. I didn't even realise there was an exemption for people still in the abdominal parasite stage. I can't see a single downside to the legislation, but then again I haven't RTFA yet.

Story 2, again without RTFA, is just silly. I have nothing else to add.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

For story 1, one of the huge problems is that some unknown portion of all pregnancies (estimates between 20 and 50%) end before the woman knows that she is pregnant. Miscarriages that early on may resemble nothing so much as a slightly-delayed menstrual period that's a bit crampier than usual, and may be undetected as miscarriages unless the woman is being medically monitored. As written, the only way your typical sexually active woman would be able to be sure she is conforming to the law is for her to call up the police every time her period starts. The law appears to have been written by someone unaware of common facts about pregnancy. This is not a well-written law.

If the law were better written so that it applied only in cases where the woman knew she was pregnant to begin with, there would still be problems--such as, say, treating a distraught woman who just lost a baby she may have desperately wanted as a criminal equivalent to a stalker, arsonist, or statutory rapist if she hasn't informed the Commonwealth of Virginia of her loss within twelve hours of its occurrence.

[mystified13.livejournal.com]

Your body = your choice.

[darth-spacey.livejournal.com]

Sure, your choice to kill your own child, and have it vaccuumed out of your body. I can, actually, live with that, though it turns my stomach a bit.

Your choice to ignore the spirit of the law, and not report that death, because the law was written before fetuses were considered not-fully-alive? Not really sure where I stand on that.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Thing is, neither of these stories should have anything to do with abortion at all. Well, the first one does have to do with the loss of any "product of conception," but the vast majority of those are unintended miscarriages rather than induced abortions. And the second story has to do with the right of a woman to divorce a man convicted of abusing her. I'm actually of violently mixed emotions about abortion--if there is truly a human life there, that life should be ended only with good reason. What ticks me off about these stories is how pregnancy of any kind is being made into a political tool. It sickens me.

[(Anonymous)]

but that's what i like - if you're confused about the whole issue in the first place, then you're thinking... people who have black/white ideas on these kind of issues scare the shit out of me...