RH Reality Check via Dan Savage:
A bill passed by the Utah House and Senate this week and waiting for the governor’s signature, will make it a crime for a woman to have a miscarriage…. In addition to criminalizing an intentional attempt to induce a miscarriage or abortion, the bill also creates a standard that could make women legally responsible for miscarriages caused by “reckless” behavior. Using the legal standard of “reckless behavior” all a district attorney needs to show is that a woman behaved in a manner that is thought to cause miscarriage, even if she didn’t intend to lose the pregnancy.
How common are miscarriages?
Miscarriage occurs in about 15-20% of all recognized pregnancies, and usually occurs before the 13th week of pregnancy. The actual percentage of miscarriages is estimated to be as high as 50% of all pregnancies, since many miscarriages occur without the woman ever having known she was pregnant.
slag
Miscarriages are murder!
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
Is anyone really surprised? There is an inevitability to where the wingnut agenda winds up taking us all. Reductio ad absurdum.
Svensker
Are you fucking kidding me? As someone who has experienced the grief caused by a miscarriage… So you get the grief, the fear, the pain and expense (from the procedure after a miscarriage to make sure there’s no tissue left that could cause infection or problems)…and then you get to answer to the government? Guess that’s why they call themselves small government folks, huh?
Bastards.
suzanne
Giving Utah to the Talibangelicals and building a wall around it sounds like a much better idea now, doesn’t it??
Shinobi42
Could they just hurry up and imprison me for getting my period? This slow descent into lunacy is agonizing. I’d rather just go to jail now and at least not have to work a soul killing job while I wait for them to take away all my rights as a vagina-american.
licensed to kill time
Fuck these old god botherers. Let’s pass a law making it illegal to ejaculate unless you’re trying to procreate. Because that’s “reckless behavior” by their medieval standards.
slag
@Svensker: This is exactly the pro-choice argument. They’ve made it for us. Yay for them. Boo for us.
NobodySpecial
@suzanne: No. My nephew is in there, and he’s no Snake Pliskin.
beltane
Soon they will make menstruation itself a crime. According to their way of thinking, letting all those perfectly good eggs go to waste unfertilized is causing a shortage of fetuses for them to worship.
Steve
There was that bill in Virginia a while back that would have required a death certificate for all miscarriages, I guess so the state could investigate if it was actually an illegal abortion. I guess Utah wasn’t content to stop at that level of wingnuttery.
Osprey
If this is the case they may as well make a bill whereupon the illegal discharging of a penis unless it’s to impregnate a woman is construed as terrorism.
I mean, do these people think pregnant women go around gut-punching each other in order to terminate a pregnancy? I shudder at the thought of what events transpired in somebody’s life to make them believe something like this, and then to construct it into a law…
Ash
For the longest time I thought Utah Republicans were more sane than the rest of them? Maybe they’re just really good at hiding it.
MikeJ
@Ash: Obama sent the sane one to China, didn’t he?
dmsilev
@licensed to kill time: Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great…
With every passing day, Monty Python seems more and more like a documentary.
-dms
schooner
My wife would have been a four time felon. That’s how common it can be.
Ajay
Good for Utah. 69% for these morons voted for Bush. They hate the so called “Liberals”.
Actually, you want this to continue. Hopefully in a century or so they will realize right and wrong. Although, I doubt it.
I also recall they have some law(or tried to make a law) against pornography and thats the state with the maximum consumption(per capita?) of pornograpy. Jesus really loves them.
Robin G.
I have to give them credit for carrying their insane religious ideas to the logical extreme. At least they’re internally consistent, which is more than you can say for most of the anti-abortion movement. I have to think this will be struck down in minutes.
That being said, can we kick Utah out of the union? It’s not like there’s not good skiing in Colorado.
dmsilev
@MikeJ: I think that was basically granting him asylum as a political refugee.
-dms
beltane
@licensed to kill time: Why not just require that all males over the age of 14 undergo vasectomies which can only be reversed in the event a female partner signs an affidavit stating that she wants, at that time, to be impregnated with that particular man’s sperm. No sperm=no fetus=problem solved.
And if they’re half as Christian as they claim to be, you’d think they’d all be queuing up to become eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven. If not, they should consider the possibility of shutting the f**k up.
suzanne
@Ajay:
Also with the highest per capita use of antidepressants. And #1 (not percapita, just #1) in consumption of Jell-o.
My argument is really just making itself here.
Mike Kay
There’s no difference between Bush and Gore.
licensed to kill time
@dmsilev:
if a sperm gets wasted, God gets quite irate ;-)
celticdragonchick
I thought for a moment this was a gag from the Onion.
Christ in heaven. Unbelievable.
DougJ
@Mike Kay:
Perfect.
El Cid
It’s about time somebody cracked down on these miscarriaging scofflaws. Now, if somebody would do something about all the damn cripples draining our society’s resources.
soonergrunt
@Robin G.: How about we keep the land and kick the people out instead? Better yet, relocate them all to the area bordered by Price, Roosevelt, Vernal, Moab, and Green River? Having grown up in Grand Junction, CO, I know that region is nice and lush all year round. /sarcasm.
Bob K
As a friend of mine used to say: “If men could get pregnant – abortion would be a sacrament.”
licensed to kill time
@beltane: Castrati For Christ, I like it!
celticdragonchick
@soonergrunt:
I might go with that.
Lee
We have “BBQ & BS” on Wednesdays at work.
One of the people that attends is VERY anti-abortion (not just pro-life). I have pointed out to him many times that the natural result of his ideas is something like this very law.
I have also pointed out the above concept of many miscarriages happen with very little fanfare as the woman is not far along in the pregnancy. I then ask him if he was ready for his daughter to be examined every month by the police to make sure she has not had a pregnancy/miscarriage?
He never has answered that question.
satby
This does follow logically from the refusal to have exceptions for a mother’s emotional or physical health in anti-abortion laws, because women will just lie to get abortions. Or self-abort and call it a miscarriage. They’re getting closer to the wingnut nirvana of outlawing birth control completely and the majority of the country doesn’t have a clue.
Napoloen
@schooner:
Not if she lived in a three stikes and your out state because you would not have been around to get her pregnant again.
kay
@Steve:
The intent is a little broader than that.
They’re trying to move towards defining “person” as ” begins at conception”.
It’s huge. The implications are just mind-boggling, because of course you’re talking about a newly recognized status for a “person” who is inside another person. It would change everything. I think it’s tragically misguided, because the legal system is a blunt instrument. They’re essentially going to end up with mother-fetus in a potentially adversarial relationship, with the state smack dab in the middle.
It’s a huge, huge mistake. They need to stop and think it through.
Mike Kay
This is EXACTLY why I’m voting for Nader in 2012, regardless if Obama runs or not, because I don’t care if women are thrown in jail for life, because I’m a dude, so it doesn’t concern me. I don’t care who appoints the next 5 supreme court justices, since abortion doesn’t effect me. After all, there’s no difference btwn Bush and Gore.
scav
@beltane:
Neo-Monarchist Commie Fascist. The mens are the pros that choose, the womens are the hos who should, according to natural-right biblical law, submit. It’s there, right in the name on the tin: Pro-Choice. Silly Rabbit.
Ash Can
Seems to me the logical next step is to require all female skiers and snowboarders of childbearing age to take pregnancy tests before they can hit the slopes. That should do wonders for the state’s tourism and recreation industries.
The only “reckless behavior” I see here is for any women of childbearing age and parents of daughters who currently reside in Utah to not be trying to figure out how to move the hell out of there at this point.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
This means that when you get to Heaven half the souls you hang out with will be a couple inches long or less. I hope they’re not boorish at parties.
peach flavored shampoo
Great idea. Stupid women always slaughtering their early-children by riding a bike or sleeping or eating pepperoni. This’ll solve that prison overpopluation problem.
Cain
Passing this bill will ensure that a steady stream of sane people will leave the state and kill any corporations desire to stay there as well since nobody in their right mind would want to live in a place where you can be tossed in jail for a crime your body committed.
cain
AkaDad
Men controlling women’s lives has always been the American way! Why do you all hate America?
WereBear
And what about the women I’ve known with fertility problems, who have difficulty carrying to term?
They are even more prone to have something go wrong in the first trimester… even with a wanted pregnancy.
Persia
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): That’s why Limbo was so helpful back in the day. They could all swim around the banks of the river.
Svensker
@kay:
Yes. So, are they going to penalize women who smoke while pregnant? Women who don’t take their folic acid? Women who don’t shovel the sidewalk properly and fall on the ice and miscarry? What if you have too many sodas?
It really is the Taliban.
This country has gone completely nuts.
suzanne
@WereBear:
Don’t you know? If it was GOD’S WILL, they’d have no problem having lotsa baybeez. They’re only infertile because they’re fuckups.
God, the fact that some people actually think this way terrifies me.
kay
@Napoloen:
Can you imagine? State can file a complaint charging wife with reckless endangerment, as the “next friend” of the fetus.
The fetus will need a guardian appointed, I assume.
Do they have any idea where they’re headed with this? This goes from zero to insanity in about 6 months.
satby
@WereBear: It’s sooo not about the woman, she is just a vessel for the blastocyte.
Steve
@kay:
I understand that, but I honestly don’t have a problem with laws that, say, convict you of two counts of murder if you kill a pregnant woman and her fetus too. Or if you hit a pregnant woman in the stomach with the intent of killing her fetus and you succeed, that to me is murder too. I support these laws even though I understand they move us farther down that “slippery slope” that you mention. Just because a woman has the right to terminate her pregnancy, that doesn’t mean anyone else can just come along and terminate it for her against her wishes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Svensker:
Some people in the country have gone completely nuts. Take a step back from the ledge.
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
Why is everyone upset about the
ShiaMormonUmmalegislature imposingShariaBiblical principles on the people ofAmerIranUtah? Persecutors!burnspbesq
@ Soonergunt:
I’ve driven through that area on I-70, I think. As you drive out the west end of Green River, there is a sign that says “No Services Next 106 Miles.”
Am I thinking about the right place?
Sounds like a bodacious place for a Wingnut and Christianist Theme Park. They can experience the Israelites’ 40 years of wandering in the desert at first hand.
Capital idea, sir. Hear hear.
kay
@Svensker:
I don’t know. If the state is going to punish reckless behavior, I think they have a duty to try to prevent reckless behavior, because the fetus is, of course, a minor.
I just think it’s mind-boggling.
Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
‘As a friend of mine used to say: “If men could get pregnant – abortion would be a sacrament.” ‘
And if men menustrated, we’d all be bragging about how many days flow we had and how bad our PMS headaches were. Thinking about it, we’re so wimpy when we get a cold compared to women, we’d get at least 3 mandatory days off when we were on the rag.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Svensker: Wait until all women are told they have to stay in bed for 6 weeks after they have sex to ensure that they either did not get pregnant or to make sure that embryo attaches properly. And when the embryo doesn’t, prosecutors can blame the woman.
Mike Kay
I think it’s about time we got tough on women. As george bush said, “for too long our culture has said, ‘If it feels good, do it'”.
We have to send a message that this permissive behavior will no longer be tolerated, especially when the unborn are at risk.
Morbo
@celticdragonchick: They did have a video news segment on the new law that would force women to paint their nursery before going through with an abortion. And now reality once again pisses on satire’s rotting corpse.
burnspbesq
@kay:
Well, you could all become Wiccans or some such and argue that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act exempts you because complying would be contrary to your religion. That ought gum up the works for a while.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
What if a pregnant terrorist has a miscarriage during enhanced interrogation? Riddle me that one, wingnuts.
WereBear
@Morbo: Heaven help us, I thought you were kidding.
Though of course, since it’s Arkansas, I am not surprised.
khead
This would probably go over a little better if Utah offered its folks some kind of gift to make them feel better.
I suggest a laptop with webcam for every resident.
Morbo
Oh, and even if I’m not the first one to say it, I’ll say it anyway: is there really any doubt that an industrious Utah district attorney is going to consider sex outside of marriage “reckless behavior?”
kay
@Steve:
Well, no offense, and I’m sure you’re well-meaning, but the requisite intent here is “reckless” and I just think you’re going to end up with a lot of unintended consequences for women.
I’m asking you to consider if there might be a better way to punish people who hit pregnant women. Without sending women down this crazy legal slope where we don’t know where they end up. Knowing what we know, which is that there is a portion of this country that are bound and determined to put women and the fetus they’re carrying on an equal legal basis. I would ask you how women might lose, big, if that’s the end result.
WereBear
@Morbo: And wouldn’t that make the heroine’s behavior of the Mormon vampire epic, The Twilight Series, indictable?
If sleeping with a vampire and flirting with a werewolf isn’t reckless…
geg6
@kay:
I can only assume you are being snarky in your posts on this. Because the idea that you are surprised or shocked or think they just haven’t thought this through is…well, just nuts. They’ve thought it through completely. The idea is to remove any self-determination in the lives of women. And by making miscarriage a crime, they make women slaves to zygotes and fetuses. Which is EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT.
kay
@burnspbesq:
I’m going to petition for child support on behalf of a 3 day old fetus. Then I’m applying for SSI.
Peter J
@Mike Kay:
The FCC begs to differ.
Rhoda
Wow.
How long before they start the uteri registry?
GregB
Torture is surely one of those ‘if it feels good do it’ issues with conservatives.
Can fetal waterboarding be far behind with these degenerates running amok?
kay
@geg6:
To me, it looks like how a lot of stupid laws come about. There’s a horrible case that gets a lot of publicity, and legislators grandstand, and write something dumb, to “fix it”.
I agree with you about the end game. Absolutely. Here, I don’t think they’ve considered the end game. They don’t know they’re advancing “the movement”.
Ash Can
Actually, I can see this idiocy being appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, with the Five Wingnuts rendering another Citizens United decision and a mighty fine showdown in Congress as the legislature takes on the responsibility of cleaning up the legal trainwreck. A colossal waste of time on a ridiculous issue, to be sure, but it would force everyone’s hand and possibly prevent future such cases of misogynists exerting too much power.
Hiram Taine
@Ash Can: Since driving is by far the most dangerous common activity engaged in by most people it seems only logical that women should have a pregnancy test before they drive or ride anywhere in a car or truck, if they are pregnant they should refrain from traveling in motor vehicles.
With the lap belt over the abdomen even a fender bender could well result in a miscarriage.
El Cid
If miscarriages are outlawed, only outlaws will have miscarriages.
Bubblegum Tate
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Wouldn’t matter. Terrorists don’t have rights, remember?
Glidwrith
@Svensker: Folks, you obviously haven’t been watching South Carolina lately. They are already locking up pregnant women for “reckless” behavior – including prosecuting one for murder when she went off a second story floor, survived, but lost the baby.
geg6
@Steve:
So assault, battery, or attempted murder of the woman isn’t enough? We have to go down that slippery slope so you and people like you can slap a few more charges on some asshole, regardless of what it does to women and their control over their own bodies?
Utter crap. How about we just outlaw the discharge of sperm while we’re at it?
WereBear
Of course, we are all acting as thought they will take this law seriously, and solemnly prosecute each and every woman who qualifies.
But they won’t do that.
This will be winked in the cases of married women who are Mormons, because “of course” she wanted the pregnancy.
Even if she went skydiving. (Though there is a case on record of a woman who didn’t know she was pregnant, her chute didn’t open, she lived, and so did the baby.)
Brian J
@Svensker:
When I was talking to my Libertarian friend a couple of months ago, I mentioned how I don’t consider myself one but have far more respect for them than I do most Republicans, since they don’t try to dabble in telling people how to live their lives. I said that there’s a legitimate debate about the appropriate role of taxes and regulations and other sort of economic measures, but that for me, there really wasn’t a reasonable argument to be made about telling people what to do with their own bodies or whom to go home to each night. After all, that has far more of an effect on people than any sort of minor tax increase does.
Apparently, some Republicans are doing everything they can to make me convinced I was right.
Evinfuilt
@Mike Kay:
That is Grade A Balloon Juice snark, deserves to be remembered for an end of year award.
scav
On the up-side, if those are all little people in there, does that mean they’re one hell of a potential voting demographic? Or, could a woman incorporate with her little snowflake passengers and get the all-prized corporate personhood as blessed by the Supremes?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Rhoda:
“Register wombs, not guns.”
That’s a fair chunk of the GOP’s non-economic domestic policy agenda in a nutshell.
PaulW
It’s interesting to note how this law will basically make it a criminal act to risk any pregnancy in the first place. This could well encourage women to never get pregnant at all! What a novel concept by the far right wingnut crowd, the perfect way to ensure no more pregnant women in this country! I bet China will be plugging this law into their legal system ASAFP…
El Cid
One snowflake baby, one vote.
jl
Looks like about 50% to 60% of all miscarriages are undetected.
There is a massive amount of undetected crime.
They will have to create a special crime task force to root this lawlessness out.
Can call it Department of Wombland Security, or something. Call in Lieberman for advice on setting it up.
in Edit: need something that corresponds to community gang control laws. Need a barefoot law, a “stay in the kitchen” law, and a probably outlaw wimmins in kollej would be advisable supplemental legislation.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@celticdragonchick: No shit. WTF? When my sister first got pregnant the doctor told her not to do certain exercises because it COULD induce a miscarriage. Better get the Utah Modesty Squad together so it can break up those aerobics and Pilates classes.
You know what, they just need to de-mothball a bunch of iron lungs and strap the ladies in to prevent a massacre.
kay
@WereBear:
Just retain defense counsel when you get pregnant. Make that your second phone call, after the father.
arguingwithsignposts
When miscarriages are outlawed, only outlaws will have miscarriages.
Mike Kay
This bill/law creates incentives for women to take good care of their bodies, on behalf of the unborn. It’s a good bill, no two ways about it. In fact, this bill will do more to reform health care, than any version of the so-called public option.
DanF
@Hiram Taine: Women should really have to pee on their car key and have the test come back negative before the key will start the car. It’s the only responsible course of action. Also, too.
licensed to kill time
@Rhoda: One wonders if they secretly long for a Republic of Gilead a la The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.
Tsulagi
Damn, those Utahans really setting the bar high for The Onion aren’t they?
I await Stupak to announce the god botherer congressional wing will not consider HCR reconciliation without the new and improved Utah language.
beltane
@PaulW: This law will encourage sodomy, which I hear is quite popular among Christian “virgins”.
Roger Moore
@Bubblegum Tate:
Are you calling an unborn baby a terrorist? Everyone knows that the unborn are completely innocent, which is why we must take every possible step to require women to carry their pregnancies to term.
Barry
God d*mn the Mormon Church. That’s is; I’m tired of those guys – they’re just evangelical whackjobs in a different dialect.
scav
@Mike Kay: Unfunded Mandate! Unfunded Mandate!
Martin
Good God, please sign this. Every time some dumb-shit law like this comes up, we get to educate people and point out how fucking retarded the GOP is.
I can’t wait for the Planned Parenthood ads to start running nationally that say that getting pregnant in Utah could land you in prison. The GOP will lose everyone under the age of 35.
jl
@Mike Kay: OK fine. You have a point. Now can I suggest mandatory health insurance, with criminal sanctions for adult men and women, whether they are preggers or not?
Ash Can
@Morbo: Hell, sex inside of marriage could come under fire. And you can kiss amniocentesis tests goodbye in the state of Utah as well under this law. And I’m dead serious about requiring female skiers to take pregnancy tests before hitting the slopes. Heck, pregnancy tests could be required of any and all sites and purveyors of active sports.
And, while we’re at it, how about police officers stationed in every Starbucks store, on the lookout for pregnant women buying coffee? Or in grocery stores and restaurants, on the lookout for pregnant women eating blue cheese?
As Kay describes, the ramifications of this law are mind-boggling. “Draconian” doesn’t even begin to cover it. That’s why I detect a SCOTUS case in the offing if this bill is signed into law.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@jl:
FTW.
I nominate this for a post-tag.
Mike Kay
Lose a fetus — Go to Jail.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: Original sin. No one is innocent, Waterboard the little snowflakes. They don’t have anything to worry about unless they have something to hide. We can’t let the terrorist win. Freedom isn’t free.
Mike Kay
I know some of you guys are horrified by this, but why?
I mean this is what Jesus would have wanted!
Roger Moore
@licensed to kill time:
Fixt.
lurkergirl
I would really like to know what constitutes “behaving in a manner that is thought to cause miscarriage”. I was referred to an OB-GYN who heads a research program for the treatment of recurrent miscarriages after my second, and even he said while they have made some progress in recognizing and treating high-risk women, they’re years away from figuring out the cause(s).
Of course that was here in Soviet Canuckistan, with our evil soshulist healthcare system. No doubt the greater minds of the Utah legislature would simply jail the lot of them, along with their patients. And I’d be a criminal instead of a mother.
WereBear
The next logical step is transferring any fetus the woman might be endangering into the father.
Fair is, after all, fair.
kay
@Ash Can:
They are to me, and I’ve thought on it for a little while. The whole abortion debate is really about balancing rights. Besides all the emotion and religion, that’s how it has to play out, as a practical matter, because we’re talking about real women, and individual cases.
I just don’t know what happens when you declare that balancing act “over” and pronounce the fetus and mother are equals, because that is bound to cause some conflicts.
I think this is where this slope goes. At some point, someone has to outline some rights, and make some decisions. We can’t just keep elevating the fetus, because a collision between those two sets of rights is inevitable.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
So what? They’ve already lost most of the under 35 vote already, so they’ll see it as no big loss.
Steve
@geg6:
Absolutely right. If some guy beats up his girlfriend to induce a miscarriage and succeeds, I think that’s worse than a guy beating up his non-pregnant girlfriend and should carry a stiffer sentence.
Go tell that woman whose fetus was killed that sure, you’ll punish the guy for what he did to her, but you can’t do anything to him for killing the baby she was getting ready to bring into the world because gosh, it might set a bad precedent for some other kind of law. See if she understands.
I understand the strategic arguments, I just think killing a fetus that the mother wants to carry to term is too evil to go unpunished. No, I don’t think treating it as an ordinary crime of domestic violence, as if the death of the fetus was completely irrelevant, comes close to addressing the harm. And I suspect any woman who has been the victim of such a crime would agree.
Midnight Marauder
@kay:
Silly, kay. Thinking things through is for pansy liberals!
freelancer
Isn’t this a literal example of cognative dissonance, considering how much wingnuts constantly bitch about the dreaded “OMFG Nanny State!“.
demo woman
“behaving in a manner that is thought to cause miscarriage”
scav
Women need to start having Menopause Parties. Menopause Parades. Stomp into their BigBox Sermons, throw down some once-bloody shackles ‘n’ pads on the alter, maybe a radio-collar or two, and scream “Free at Last! Thanks the Lord I’m free at Last!”
jl
@Steve:
God has sanctioned the man to be head of the household. Everyone knows this. So, your logic does not apply to the God-appointed man beating the crap out of his pregnant wife or grilfriend because she farted, didn’t do the eggs right, sassed back at his God-appointed opinion, or otherwise displeased him somehow.
QED.
Silly liberals.
still liberal
This is another “punish the sinner” law for the Great State of Deseret. Mormon women cannot be prosecuted, of course, because the faithful wear magic underwear to protect them from physical harm. Therefore, they could do nothing that might cause harm to a fetus.
freelancer
@Roger Moore:
And now Pawlenty’s platform is the elimination of Social Security and Medicare.
Roger Moore
@lurkergirl:
I don’t know what it is in reality, but I’m guessing that in Utah it will constitute “behaving in a manner that is not approved of by the Mormon Church”.
Bob L
I sense selective enforced law here. Obviously the good Mormons of Utah aren’t going to subject their own wives and daughters to criminal investigation due a miscarriage since everyone just knows these woman are just being good little baby machines for Jesus. No, those Utah prosecutes will be picking socially vulnerable women to enforce the law on; Mormon church dissidents and the like.
Emma
Steve: If you punch any woman anywhere at all it’s a crime called assault and battery, or any number of others in the books. It puts you in jail, period.
Now, think about this. A woman is walking past a bar and a fight erupts. She gets quite intentionally hurt and suffers a miscarriage. A district attorney looking to make his political bones could drag her into court claiming she should have known better than to walk by a bar, since fights could break out.
Steve
@jl:
I must be living in the most godless household of all time.
Tsulagi
Just checked, seems Utah has a “three strikes and you’re out” law. So if a woman had three miscarriages presumably she could be sent to prison for life. Which is a bit of irony right there.
Only in Utah, where the Taliban is the new far left.
SiubhanDuinne
@licensed to kill time:
Fascinating that you would mention that. It so happens I am seeing Margaret Atwood tonight (she’s doing a reading/book signing in Atlanta for The Year of the Flood) and the entire time I was reading through the comments here I was wondering just what she would have to say about it. If there’s a Q&A period tonight I’m tempted to ask her.
Randy P
@WereBear:
Onion News, folks. The Taliban hasn’t gotten this far yet.
geg6
@Steve:
I really don’t give a flying fuck if she understands. Her emotional needs are not my problem or anyone else’s. The fact that you seem to think her emotional needs trump the rights of other people is.
lurkergirl
@Roger Moore: It must be written on one of the “sealed” gold plates.
gnomedad
We are all El Salvadorans now.
Bad Horse's Filly
You get the government you vote for. And I’m going to bet a large portion of women in Utah approve of this bill. It’s all about simple answers to complicated questions for them.
If I wasn’t bound by confidentiality, I could tell you some real horror stories of women who had to choose between their lives and their babies’ lives. Sometimes so they could be around to raise the child they already had. Fuck all those women out there who think they have a right to dictate the health rights of another woman. They’d prefer an orphan.
SiubhanDuinne
@demo woman:
Applause! That line is awesome on about five different levels, d.w.
DougJ
@Emma:
If you punch any woman anywhere at all it’s a crime called assault and battery, or any number of others in the books.
What if she’s a hippie?
Steve
@Emma:
No, it certainly doesn’t “put you in jail, period.” You might get off with probation or a suspended sentence, you might get a few months in jail if you’re not a repeat offender. Maybe it would be a better world if you automatically went to jail “if you punch any woman anywhere at all,” but it’s certainly not the world we currently live in.
Regardless, my belief is that if you assault a pregnant woman with intent to kill her fetus and you succeed, that’s a much worse crime than generic assault and battery and should be punished more harshly. I simply don’t accept this argument that if we give a fetus any legal protections at all, that sends us down a slippery slope to the criminalization of all abortion.
Ash Can
@SiubhanDuinne:
Don’t just be “tempted,” by all means go ahead and do it. Not only would you very likely get an excellent answer from her, you’ll have brought this issue to the attention of everyone in attendance, and made everyone there aware of this insanity. It might fly under their radar screens otherwise (at least until the legal shit really starts to hit the fan weeks and months down the road).
artem1s
@khead:
I suggest a laptop with webcam for every
residentuterus.fixt.
Also, I’m assuming the DA would consider having a IUD in place reckless behavior as it technically induces a miscarriage before the egg can be implanted. So they can legally ban all forms of abortifacts including, the morning after pill, low dosage birth control pills, IUDs, and pretty much anything that isn’t barrier method. Bye, bye contraception.
gnomedad
I’m surprised no one has yet mentioned Sarah Palin’s transcontinental odyssey after her water broke with Trig. Good thing she didn’t have to change planes in Utah.
licensed to kill time
@SiubhanDuinne:
Let us know what she says if you ask her. When I read The Handmaid’s Tale back in the mid-80’s I remember thinking it was entirely possible something like The Republic of Gilead could come to fruition if the Xtian wingnuts ever gained the upper hand. The Christian Coalition was fairly ascendant at the time {{{{shudder}}}} so it wasn’t as far-fetched as it might seem.
geg6
@Steve:
No, of course you don’t. But you have no problem with the idea that a fetus or zygote’s legal protections are equal to or possibly superior to those of the actual woman involved. Which is where the slippery slope begins.
Not-born organisms don’t have rights. Period.
Ash Can
@Steve: IANAL, but it seems to me there are laws already on the books addressing the infliction of mental anguish. This strikes me as the appropriate avenue for addressing the situation you describe, rather than venturing into some rights-of-the-fetus morass.
bemused
When abortion is being discussed on msm news, it’s rare that the anti-choicer is asked what should happen to the woman having the abortion, charged with a crime, jailed. I think I heard it asked once & the anti-choicer dodged answering. No one wants to ask or answer that one when it should asked of the anti-choicers over & over again.
Mnemosyne
@Steve:
I think you can do it without granting rights to the fetus itself, though. Since a beating severe enough to cause a miscarriage would pretty much by definition be potentially severe enough to kill the woman herself (assuming the miscarriage didn’t kill her), I think assault with intent to kill or attempted murder would fit the bill. Maybe add the death of the fetus on as a sentencing enhancement like they do here in California — for example, if you rob a liquor store, you get an extra 5 years tacked on automatically if you used a gun to do it.
Ash Can
@gnomedad: demo woman @ #109 sez hai
scav
@Steve: And, moreover, if proving intent isn’t a legal hairball up for grabs… Could possibly make consent in rape cases look straightforward.
gex
@geg6: You can’t argue this with a person of Steve’s gender. He cannot possibly empathize with having to sacrifice his personal rights for a blob of cells. I’m sorry if that is a crude description of a future person. But I need to draw a very blunt distinction between a fully formed human adult and what is being proposed as its equal.
Evolutionary
US Woman Fights Ruling That Kept Her In Hospital Too late it already is happening in Florida and other states including here in PA. Women have no right to be “reckless” when a fetus is involved. Of course recklessness is in the eye of the beholder.
Steve
@geg6:
Take it easy with the sexist language. A woman who has just had her fetus killed by an assailant is a crime victim, not someone with “emotional needs” as though she’s being irrational to think she’s lost something of importance.
Punishing the crime that was committed against the fetus does not “trump” the rights of other people. No one loses rights if we pass a law criminalizing the killing of a fetus outside the context of abortion; in fact, many states already have such laws, and they haven’t led to the criminalization of abortion yet. Here’s the reality: if Republicans appoint enough anti-choice judges, the right to an abortion will be gone, period. They won’t care whether or not anti-fetal killing laws exist to use an excuse; they’ll just outlaw abortion either way.
I think it’s actually you who want to take away this pregnant woman’s right to obtain justice for the crime that was committed against her fetus, in the name of avoiding the potential for some slippery slope argument to be made somewhere down the road. I don’t agree with you on this.
ronin122
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: seconded
Steve
Yes, I don’t mind treating it as an aggravating factor or whatever. I’m not saying we have to give ammunition to opposing arguments by calling it “murder” of a fetus or anything like that.
But surely there are other ways to induce a miscarriage than by beating the woman to within the proverbial inch of her life. Let’s imagine the guy who is angry that his girlfriend got pregnant so he slips an abortifacient into her drink. If he succeeds in killing the fetus, my view is that he’s committed a pretty awful crime whether or not he’s caused significant physical harm to the mother aside from the loss of her fetus. I don’t think treating it as “infliction of mental distress” or whatever really comes to terms with the gravity of this crime.
geg6
@Steve:
Oh, dude. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Sexist language? WTF? You do realize that I AM A FUCKING WOMAN, don’t you? And sorry to break it to you, but I know whole hell of a lot more about the emotional needs of a woman who has lost a fetus due to the violence inflicted on her by some asshole man that you ever will? Especially since it happened to my sister, and not only did she lose a fetus, but her entire uterus?
You really stepped in here, dude.
You do understand also that most of these state laws that have given a cluster of cells the same rights (and in some cases, more rights) than actual women were passed under the auspices of those in the anti-abortion movement for the express purpose of undermining a woman’s right to reproductive choice, to create that actual slippery slope that you are so eager to reinforce?
You really should just shut up about this because you have no idea what you are talking about and seem to want to dig yourself deeper every time you put fingers to keyboard.
ksmiami
As I said before, seal off the idiots; close down the military bases and take away their computers and advil and that goes for the middle east as well as middle America still in the 1600s. They don’t deserve to live with the advantages of modernity if they don’t accept it.
Mnemosyne
@Steve:
It does if you treat it as a separate crime. You really have no idea that women have been convicted of murder if their baby is stillborn, do you?
Steve
Since you’re whipping out all the rhetorical trump cards like “a person of Steve’s gender,” please show me where I said a fetus should have legal rights superior to those of the woman carrying it. In fact, please show me where I said the fetus should have equal legal protections. Please show me where I said a frickin’ zygote should have any legal protections whatsoever.
If you can show me where I said any of these things then I will support your right to call me every name in the book. Until then, I wish you would dial it down a notch.
Mnemosyne
@Steve:
Here’s the other thing, Steve — I don’t think you realize how dangerous a miscarriage can be, especially if it’s later in the pregnancy. If someone slips you some RU-486, you are going to end up in the hospital and have to have several procedures done to make sure you don’t die or lose your ability to have children in the future. “Reckless endangerment” would be the least of the charges a guy would face for doing something like that.
I suppose that in a country where some states say it’s perfectly legal to shove a video camera under an unsuspecting woman’s skirt it’s not necessarily a bad idea to have a law on the books that it’s a crime to force a woman to miscarry, but that’s a far cry from calling the death of the fetus a murder.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@freelancer: Yep.
SA2SQ vol. XIII
Here’s a question: What’s the penalty for a doctor who says Fuck You when the state asks him to hand over the woman’s medical records?
(Yes, I’m assuming the determination of “recklessness” will be made based – at least in part – on medical records, although it wouldn’t surprise me if Utah set up a Reckless Pregnancy Hotline so people can rat out pregnant joggers.)
Linda
If miscarriage is illegal, can we finally close down every polluting industry in the country? Toxins in the environment, like mercury, cause miscarriage. So will Utah vote to close down all polluting industries until a complete study can be done?
geg6
@Steve:
Well, I never was the one that whipped out the rhetorical trump card that you’re a man. However, now that you mention it, I can see that your gender definitely blinds you the reality of women’s lives.
jl
I think that we DO NOW give the fetus legal protections, and the current standard is in line with longstanding historical practice for European countries (and also in the US before proto-Xtianism started in the 1840s), and is practical and results in enforceable law.
Legal protection for the fetus grows throughout pregnancy, and increases as its viability outside the womb increases.
Krazy o’ Joe Biden explained this clearly in an interview soon after the 2008 election. Currently the Supreme Court has broken this up into trimesters:
first trimester: women’s call
second trimester: some state protections
third trimester: significant state protection of the fetus
So, I think that people who are saying that we do not now give the fetus protection, simply because we do not give a lump of cells that has a 30% to 60% of never being born at all in the regular couse of events as much protection as a 8 and half month baby in the womb,
ARE FLAT OUT WRONG.
And they should stop saying wrong things.
Is that effing too much to ask?
ruemara
@Steve:
You do support equal protections for a fetus in cases of assault, do you not? Aren’t you asking for us to rethink condemning laws that make endangering foeti a charge on the grounds that it’s extra heinous if someone specifically attacks a woman to harm her fetus? It does seem like you’re proposing equal protections for a fetus. I’m fine with an additional set of years added on for intentional assault on a pregnant woman, but the fetus has no frigging clue what’s going. It’s not self aware. The emotional harm a woman would live with is for life, if she’s the victim of such an attack. The harm it would do to all women to create such specific laws with such nebulous terms (endangering the fetus) is darned near incalculable because it would depend too much on how conservative a judge you’d get.
Steve
@Mnemosyne:
I’m very familiar with the case you linked. I find it frightening. What astonishes me is that you seem to believe no one who has heard of that case could possibly hold the views I hold.
Here’s what I believe. I think there is a big, big difference between a law that punishes the intentional killing of someone else’s fetus (outside the context of abortion, obviously) and a law that punishes an expectant mother for being negligent or reckless regarding her own pregnancy. Perhaps more importantly, I see no evidence that the first sort of law leads to the second sort.
The idea someone advanced above, that laws punishing the intentional killing of a fetus are nothing but the recent invention of anti-choicers seeking to move us down a slippery slope, is not exactly what I would call reality-based. Laws of that type date back hundreds of years, and if we look at the actual state of the law in common-law societies, those laws coexisted perfectly peaceably with laws permitting abortion prior to viability. (Don’t tell Justice Scalia, who seems to think abortion has always been illegal since time immemorial.)
Some people see viability as a dividing line, the way the common-law societies did. Personally, I see the woman’s choice as the dividing line. If she wants to terminate her pregnancy, the law should protect that choice 100%. If she wants to continue her pregnancy to term, the law should also protect that choice. In part, that means that if someone comes along and kills the fetus that the woman wanted to carry to term, they should be punished for doing so.
It’s remarkable that this is considered some kind of extremist or dangerous view.
Ajay
@suzanne:
> My argument is really just making itself here.
Dont know what you mean. Purpose was to show these guys are hypocrites who impose their morals on others while not following what they preach.
Mnemosyne
@Steve:
It does seem that legislators are much more enthusiastic about punishing women who have miscarriages or stillbirths than they are if a third party causes that miscarriage or stillbirth. This Utah law is yet another example of them being more interested in punishing someone who dared not to have a completely healthy pregnancy than in any crime that might be committed against a pregnant woman.
Actually, they are, because the laws being pushed right now are trying to give actual personhood to the fetus — that is, to declare that it is a full person on a level with the pregnant woman. That means that the law would not say that that the victim of the crime was the pregnant woman — it would say that the victim of the crime was the fetus itself.
There is a difference between the laws being pushed right now because the previous laws treated causing a pregnant woman to miscarry to be a crime against her, not the fetus, because the fetus had no standing. Now they’re trying to change the laws so that the crime was committed against the fetus, not the woman.
That’s the slippery slope. Once you establish that the fetus is a separate entity that can be the victim of a crime in its own right, you have established that it is a separate person from the pregnant woman and that the pregnant woman can be punished if something happens to it.
I don’t think anyone here has a problem with laws against harming pregnant women as long as it’s clear that the victim of the crime is the pregnant woman, not the fetus.
Steve
@ruemara:
No, I’m not saying it has to be equal. If you intentionally kill the mother, that’s murder and you should get life in prison, right? I don’t think intentionally killing the fetus has to carry a life sentence. I just feel strongly that as crimes go, it’s not nothing and the law shouldn’t pretend like nothing happened.
Splitting Image
This is Obama’s fault for sending the sane guy to China.
Rahm must have put him up to it.
Also, in defense of Utahns, the average voters don’t seem to be as chipper about this development as the good folks in the legislature.
scav
@Steve: But, in a thread where the actual law in question is about prosecuting the woman involved … you’ve chosen an odd context to make your argument. You also make some pretty broad assumptions about what women must want in terms of punishment/justice — over and above presuming to know what they feel in certain cases that just might get up actual women’s noses. So you’ve also chosen a rather odd manner in which to make your argument.
Ash Can
@Steve: FWIW, I don’t consider this view extremist at all (and I’m female). The danger simply lies in opening a door to establishing fetal rights that can conflict with maternal rights. But, as both jl @ #152 and you point out, this has been at least partially addressed by legal precedent. What I’m saying is that I think there are laws regarding mental anguish that already address the intentional harming of a wanted fetus by framing the crime as one of inflicting additional suffering on the woman, rather than addressing the fetus directly, and I believe this is the correct approach to take.
grumpy13
Utah was established, if you will recall, by a group of obsessed sexual predators, lead by a dictatorial, ruthless, murderous, sexual predator, and as a result, they’re fairly inbred as well…
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Omnipotence test: can the Catholic Church create layers of dogma so convoluted that even God can’t resolve it?
suzanne
@Ajay:
Earlier in the thread, I suggested giving Utah to the fundies and letting them have their own Sovereign Nation of Deseret, or whatever the hell they want to call it, and then sealing it off from the rest of us. I am of the 49-States-Is-Enough school. I was really just noting what a horrible place Utah is.
You’re absolutely right. They’re complete hypocrites and it sickens me.
Persia
@Mnemosyne: This. The current laws against assault and battery would probably cover all the problems if we didn’t have such a hard time taking domestic assault and battery seriously. That people feel the solution to this problem is to give ‘rights’ to the fetus instead of increasing protections on pregnant women just shows how far we have to go as a nation in terms of treating women as sole rightsholders of their own bodies.
CatStaff
I was born with a progesterone deficiency that made it very difficult for me to stay pregnant, resulting in a total of 5 miscarriages before I was able, with the help of evil science, to carry my only child to term. Later I suffered 2 ectopic pregnancies, which pretty much put me out of the baby-making business.
I wonder what the god botherers would have made of all that? And I can assure them that they would have needed to come armed.
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Steve: God called, and said you’re an asshole.
EXODUS 21:22
NIV
GET THAT, UTAH? JEHOVAH SEZ IT’S A MISDEMEANOR, PUNISHABLE BY A FINE.
Steve
@scav:
Something I learned from going through our own miscarriage is that everyone reacts differently. I remember going to counseling and meeting couples who had experienced miscarriages a decade ago, and successfully had healthy, happy children since, who nevertheless continued to mourn their miscarriage just like it was a toddler who died tragically or something of the sort. That’s of course not the norm. There’s a broad spectrum. I have yet to meet anyone who shrugged it off like “oh well, it was just a clump of cells,” unless we’re talking about the sort of early spontaneous abortion where you didn’t even know you were pregnant beforehand.
Comrade Dread
I’m pro-life/anti-abortion and this is a stupid law.
Besides if ya’ll done go lock up all the womenfolk in prison, yer jus gonna encourage more sodomy, Utahans.
(That last bit was a joke, BTW.)
twiffer
@Steve: the very nature of laws like this are to cause people to question why abortion is legal but someone can be slapped with a murder charge against a fetus.
as for the rest, the law shouldn’t give a flying fuck about feelings. emotional law is bad law and leads to all sorts of overreaching shit, such as the very assinine bill we’re discussing. obviously the mental distress of a woman who miscarries because someone hit her is greater than one who miscarries cause she was doing aerobics. that’s why we should add additionally penalties to the first case and charge the distraught woman in the second with recklessness resulting in a miscarriage.
gnomedad
@Ash Can:
Ack. demo woman is too subtle for me. :)
Brachiator
@Svensker:
You got it. The only way such a despicable law could work would be if all fertile women are confined to home, under the supervision of their husbands or boyfriends.
Also, you would either have to discharge all women from the military or immediately discharge them the moment they suspected they might be pregnant.
On the other hand, a man who made a pregnant woman feel bad could be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Is this law really happening? I am amazed that women in Utah are letting this happen. It reduces their existence to that of a vessel for an unborn child, and makes them and their families property of the state.
Raenelle
This is obviously a strategy to fill up our underpopulated prisons.
scav
@Steve: Your assumption was about the degree of “retributive justice” she would want. There is likely to be a continuum of feeling about that as well.
Paul V.
It’s a slippery slope to be sure but, is anyone really surprised. Through act or omission we have allowed and in some cases demanded that the government regulated behavior that offends us. This is true on both the left and the right and both feel justified in doing so. I am a libertarian with the firm belief government should have as little to do with my life as possible, or yours for that matter. If you want to snort coke all day long, knock yourself out. This is of course as long as you don’t engage in a manor that hurts or infringes on my right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Should you do, then it is the mandate of the government to stop you. Now we have before us a question; you decided to walk down the street swinging a loaded weapons and firing rounds off indescribably in the air, is the risk to life great? Do we expect the government to stop you? A woman’s rights are no less then a man by any means but dose she have the right to act in a manor that risk a life that can not defend itself. I know most people out there are reasonable and common sense says that if she is knowing trying to harm a baby, the left right and middle would speak for those that cant defend themselves BUT reasonable people don’t govern. If we give them a power how reasonable are we when we are surprised at their abuse of power.
fou
Is this abortion of a bill going to pass?
Cheryl from Maryland
Now we know why Utah wants a four-day school system — they need the money for the extra police, labs, tests and jails to uphold this asinine law. Aside from the incredibly horrific premise that women have to prove their miscarriages were natural and unavoidable, the legal system won’t be able to deal with real crime and, once the child is born, there will be no decent education. Good going there Utah.
fou
What’s next? Requiring that women be listed in the ‘joy book’?
chrome agnomen
women are just a one gender crime wave. can’t we just lock them all up now so it will be safe to walk the streets? maybe if we pass a law allowing same sex marriage, we could get around all this. someone float that idea to the repugs.
J. Michael Neal
@Steve: I don’t think you realize the legal implications of what you are advocating. There isn’t much objection in this thread to treating assault against a pregnant woman that causes a miscarriage more severely, but your approach would have exactly the negative consequences that your opponents are arguing it would.
You can only commit murder or assault against a person. If you it make possible to prosecute a forced miscarriage as a murder of the fetus, you are saying that it is a person. No ifs, ands or buts. It’s a requirement for the crime.
You can not stop it there. Once you have declared that the fetus is a person under the law, it has all of the rights of all other people. If nothing else, the 14th Amendment requires it. There is no way that we could do what you are advocating without giving the fetus rights equal to the mother. That opens up all of the doors that you say you want to avoid. It doesn’t matter whether you want them opened or not.
fou
@Comrade Dread
A little jailhouse humor? You sound like you know a little something about sodomy and prison.
kay
@Midnight Marauder:
It’s a terrible idea. We do a horrible, horrible job defining rights and duties between parents and children now.
Trust me. No one knows how to do it. We’re all just muddling along….it’s a train wreck.
I have no idea what happens when you try that when the child is in the other person. Judges and courts will be horrible at it. They’ll fail, they’ll make tragic errors, people’s lives will be ruined. They’ll try, that isn’t the issue.
They’ll just fail.
Northsider
@suzanne:
Just leave us Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon. The rest of that damn state is all yours, er, theirs.
Brachiator
@J. Michael Neal:
Nonsense. The law has always made exceptions, based on common sense and common law and statute.
For example, by law and IRS procedure, a child that is born and dies in 2009 can be taken as a dependent, even if alive for only a short time. A stillborn child who died before delivery cannot be taken as a dependent.
Christopher
@suzanne: Not to those of us rationals trapped inside, Suzanne. =j
J. Michael Neal
@Brachiator:
Uhm, yeah, that’s because the stillborn child was never considered a legal person. Further, keep in mind that, in neither case, is the child the person being regulated by law; it’s the parent. Children of that age aren’t taxpayers. All *parents* have to be treated equally. Children who are not being taxed can be treated differently.
Steve
@J. Michael Neal:
First, I see a lot of objections. I’ve basically been called a wingnut misogynist because while I’m 100% pro-choice, I won’t stipulate that the fetus is merely a clump of cells that someone is “just emotional” if they’re upset about losing.
Second, although I’ve said more than once that I have no problem if the crime is called something other than murder or penalized less than murder, your argument that calling it murder “would have exactly the negative consequences that my opponents are arguing it would” has one gigantic hole in it. To wit, many states already call it murder, and yet those laws have not inexorably led us to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Sure, people can argue against abortion by pointing to those laws, but that’s all it is, an argument. And like I said earlier, if the GOP appoints enough anti-choice judges it’s not going to make any difference whether or not we’ve kept them from having a good argument.
bayville
Sounds reasonable….. for Utah.
Oops, there I go bein’ all condescending again.
Christopher
@Ajay:
As for the legality of pr0n in Utah, this article sums it up pretty well: http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/article-10468-doing-it-by-the-book.html
Illegal to sell or transport into the state, but legal to own if you get it here. Pretty nutty, but that’s life behind … The Zion Curtain!
Steve
Just as an example of what I’m talking about, Indiana has a law that makes it murder to kill a viable fetus. But Indiana also has a law that prevents parents for recovering damages for the wrongful death of a viable fetus, even though they could certainly recover for the wrongful death of a live baby. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the 14th amendment lawsuit to be upheld.
The slippery slope argument is a valid concern, but that’s all it is, a concern. This idea that calling it murder automagically makes the fetus into a person for 14th amendment purposes and eliminates the right to an abortion and everything else simply isn’t legally correct. Among other things, the definition of a person – for purposes of the 14th amendment, for purposes of state law, or for any other purpose I can think of – isn’t “anyone whose killing is punishable as murder.” Nowhere will you find legal authority that says we define a person by reverse-engineering the murder statutes.
J. Michael Neal
@Steve: The Indiana law only applies to fetuses that are viable, specifically past the 7th month of pregnancy. That’s in the period in which the Supreme Court has said that abortion can be regulated. Further, if you actually read the statute in question (scroll down to IC 35-42-1-6), I don’t think that there’s any question that it could be used against the mother in the case of certain miscarriages. “Knowingly” is a very slippery term.
kay
@Steve:
I’m going to suggest you don’t understand this law. You’re advocating some hypothetical law, not this one.
“The bill passed by the Utah legislature would change that. While the bill does not affect legally obtained abortions, it criminalizes any actions taken by women to induce a miscarriage or abortion outside of a doctor’s care, with penalties including up to life in prison.”
The case that inspired this disaster was where a 17 year old girl paid someone 150 dollars to beat her up to induce a miscarriage.
Why are you insisting this law is directed at someone beating a pregnant woman? It’s not. It’s directed at pregnant women, and it carries a possible penalty of life in prison.
In addition. The requisite intent required for this brand new crime is “reckless”. That means she has to be aware of the possible consequences of her actions, but she does NOT have to intend to harm.
I want you to think about that 17 year old girl, and “reckless”, and life in prison.
Brachiator
@J. Michael Neal:
RE: For example, by law and IRS procedure, a child that is born and dies in 2009 can be taken as a dependent, even if alive for only a short time. A stillborn child who died before delivery cannot be taken as a dependent.
The fetus could have been perfectly healthy. The fetus is not considered a person for tax purposes. And this was my original point. There is no need to invoke the 14th Amendment or to assume that the law does not or cannot distinguish between a fetus and a born child.
A child who is born alive and who dies in 2009 is a dependent on the parents’ return. The child, born or stillborn, is not a taxpayer. “Being regulated by law” is something you are apparently making up.
The people in Utah, and elsewhere, are playing an interesting game. By their logic, frozen embryos would be persons endowed with rights even though they might never be born.
Tax Analyst
@kay:
Yeah, each party will need a lawyer. No potential for abuse or a total fiasco here, is there?
Tax Analyst
@kay:
And this brings up the question of at what point do we start calculating a person’s age. By current standards a fetus would be a “minus” age. Does one’s age suddenly begin at the moment of conception? If not, well, why not?
This may seem silly, but one’s age determines many things one can and cannot do.
Midnight Marauder
@kay:
Sound to me like you do, in fact, have an idea.
kay
@Tax Analyst:
It’s a nightmare now. Parental rights, children’s rights, all the actors.
I just can’t see any good coming from setting up a situation where mom and fetus are on opposite sides, and the prosecutor is driving the conflict.
This is like “let’s open THE GATES OF HELL and have a look see!”
Tax Analyst
@Ash Can:
Would a pregnant police officer have to turn in her badge? Or at least stop eating so many damned donuts? All that pre-natal sugar and fried gunk might recklessly endanger that little fetusoid.
Hell, some of these wanton, reckless actions might even be considered premeditated.
Brachiator
@kay:
You could potentially end up with a court-appointed attorney for the fetus. If twins or other multiples, each could have an attorney. In the case of an unmarried teen, the “rights” of the fetus would be independent of the rights of the mother or her parents. In the case of a married couple, the “rights” of the fetus could be independent of the wishes of both the mother and father.
What a mess.
celticdragonchick
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
Don’t get me started.
As Morbo wrote to me above:
I really do wonder on some dark nights if my family needs to start getting passports in order for Canada? No fucking around or grandstanding about “If so and so gets elected Ima moving…”
I mean recognizing that the socio-political-religious dynamic may be breaking, and breaking badly. I think that the situation we are in now is the most serious since the Civil War, and that one “black swan” event or one more terrorist attack may turn us into a Christo-Taliban nightmare. (I have read a quote from a four star Army general saying much the same thing, in his private opinion)
Somebody please tell me I am smoking crack on this one.
Annie
Next, we will have to confine all military wives. The stress of having your partner in a war zone could cause a miscarriage. Military wives will have to be locked up and monitored because who knows what they do when their partners are gone.
Can’t image the heartwarming scene when a soldier comes home, and finds his wife has been locked up and charged with murder for failing to bring their unborn child to term. That will do a lot for military morale.
Brachiator
@Tax Analyst:
She couldn’t even drink a cup of coffee (and some Utah Mormons would especially approve of this) since caffeine might harm the fetus.
And no woman who might be pregnant could be any place where people are smoking. She and the smokers could be arrested.
If she has allergies, a pregnant woman could be prosecuted if she knowingly exposes herself to a plant that triggers her allergies.
The Main-Gauche of Mild Reason
I think Republicans should just convert their women to Axlotl tanks and get it over with.
EthylEster
I recall some pro choice people saying that if Repubs were really pro life then they would go after the woman instead of just the doc. Then these people would say: But that will NOThappen because the Repubs would never win another election after that.
So I guess the Repubs have now called the bluff. And we’ll see how correct the previous reasoning was.
Josh
@gnomedad: It was my understanding that, in El Salvador and Nicaragua, if the forensic vagina inspector finds that you’ve unintentionally had a miscarriage, you’re not prosecuted. In other words, the situation there is less punitive than what the Utah legislature is creating.
EIGRP
@Steve: I wear whatever pants my wife wants me to!
C.Morris
So, this is another healthcare cost cutting effort from the Cons.? It’s a perfect way to make women that are at high risk for miscarriage to avoid the doctor entirely. After all, if you visit your physician and are legally declared pregnant and the woman subsequently loses the child, will not the Doc be required to report it to the ‘authorities’??
Better to just skip all that prenatal care in the first place, huh?
C.Morris
BTW, in a related story, the Idaho legislature is about to pass a law that allows any heath care worker or pharmacy employee to refuse to treat or dispense any care or drug that is in opposition to said employee’s conscience.
And they can’t be fired for this.
I wonder what would happen if I worked for WalMart as a checkout person, and refused to sell a gun or red meat to a customer based on my conscience? If I was a truck driver, could I refuse to deliver a load because I object to it’s contents on ethical grounds?
suzanne
@Christopher:
I’d give a one-year period for everyone sane to move out of the state and all the wingnuts to move in.
Joel
I’d consider this an advanced rejection for any faculty position offered by the University of Utah (good school, actually).
scav
Adding this late in the game just for completeness. It’s actually dated today, Guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 February 2010 19.18 GMT. Nicaragua prevents treatment of pregnant cancer patient “Nicaraguan authorities have withheld life-saving treatment from a pregnant cancer patient because it could harm the foetus and violate a total ban on abortion.” She’s 27 years old and has a 10 year old daughter. She’s 10 weeks pregnant.
Xenos
@celticdragonchick: When we filed for our kids to get Canadian citizenship (my wife is Canadian, and the kids were born in and live with us in the US) in 2005 it took about a month for the applications to be processed.
Our last child was born in 2006, and we are just getting around to filing. The expected waiting time is now 14 months. So I suspect the Canadian government is getting a bit backlogged by expat parents making sure their kids have their ducks lined up. Tells you something, I think.
rachel
@Joel: Good school, but I wouldn’t go there if I were you; it’s parked right on top of one of the worst faults in the state and is going to be shaken to rubble when The Big One hits.
The state Capitol Building is, too. That won’t be as much of a loss, though.
Mum
@Morbo:
Do you have a link by any chance? I know people who won’t believe it unless they can see it.
Teri
I would not believe a thing he said unless I read the bill myself. Sounds like they are doing the same thing they do with “safe ,legal abortion”. They deny women the truth, tell a bunch of lies and then say “see” to promote their own agenda
Trouble is, women who have had abortions are now speaking out themselves to the emotional and physical harm. When is Dan going to write a column on the women who have died from abortion in the past couple of months? Oh wait,,they don’t do that at reality check. wonder why if they are so concerned with womens health.
Gatsby
So I guess that anything else than lying in bed without moving during the entire pregnancy will be considered reckless behavior? Don’t even think about taking a shower, you Mothers-to-Be!
Glen Tomkins
Even worse
Not only are miscarriages quite common, attribution to any particular cause is quite weak. Even the “reckless behavior” most likely to increase the risk of a miscarriage, smoking, only results in an increase of a few percentage points, dwarfed in size by the baseline risk caused by factors beyond the woman’s control, and unknown factors.
Pretty much any woman prosecuted under this law, will be answering predominantly for an act of God.
Utah should cut out the middlewoman and go straight for that notorious abortionist-by-miscarriage, God, who is repsonsible for up to half of all children conceived being foully murdered before they even have a chance to be born.
kay
@scav:
There’s a shocker. You mean Nicaraguan lawmakers set this up as fetus v mother and mother lost?
I’d like to someone to show me, just once, where it went the other way.
If anyone is wondering why I get a little panicky at the the thought of courts making these decisions, I think you only have to look at the areas of the world where these laws exist.
Weirdly and inexplicably, the mother gets sacrificed an awful lot, although everyone started with only the very best intentions.
Remember November
can we borrow a predator drone- not armed of course, but yanno to scare the crap outta the Utah legislature. What the hell is in Utah besides Park City?
inkadu
@licensed to kill time: Alternate thread title: A Balm for Gilead.
EthylEster
@WereBear:
um….i clicked through and got to the onion.
Miss Roxy Cox
as a woman, this is apalling! i want to know what constitutes reckless behavior? and who decides what is reckless? is walking reckless? sex? riding in a car? looking a man who is not your husband in the eyes? sunlight? are white, middle class men really that affraid to loosing their spots on top that they have to re-invent laws to keep woman pregnant and immagrants subserviant?
Miss Roxy Cox
oh, and Teri, no one is passing laws making women get abortions, but they are passing laws making women have kids! and since you want to talk about risks and deaths, whats the stats on childbirth fatalities? or better yet, how many AIDS and crack babies are born every year? how many kids are sitting in fostercare right now? you stupid a-hole!