Utah Women May Face Murder Charges After Miscarriages

[Communist]

[FONT=Times New Roman].[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New]Utah Women May Face Murder Charges After Miscarriages[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New][FONT=Century Gothic]Outrage at bill that could jail women who 'recklessly' endanger unborn children[/FONT]
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[FONT=Book Antiqua]by David Usborne
[/FONT] [FONT=Book Antiqua]New York
[/FONT] [FONT=Arial Narrow][FONT=Book Antiqua]February 28, 2010[/FONT]

[/FONT]A proposed Utah law that would open women who suffer a miscarriage to possible criminal prosecution and life imprisonment has enraged feminists and civil rights activists across the United States.


[FONT=Century Gothic]Critics fear the new law could affect women who drink and miscarry[/FONT]

Adopted overwhelmingly by both sides of the state legislature in Salt Lake City earlier this month, the draft bill is now awaiting the signature of the state's Republican Governor, Gary Herbert. It is not clear if the growing national controversy surrounding the proposed law will slow or even stay his pen.

While the main thrust of the law is to enable prosecutors in the majority-Mormon state to pursue women who seek illegal, unsupervised forms of abortion, it includes a provision that could trigger murder charges against women found guilty of an "intentional, knowing or reckless act" that leads to a miscarriage. Some say this could include drinking one glass of wine too many, walking on an icy pavement or skiing.

Lawmakers were responding to the case of a 17-year-old pregnant Utah woman who paid a man $150 to assault her physically in the hope that the beating would cause her to miscarry. The child was born anyway and put up for adoption. And while the man involved is currently behind bars, prosecutors found they had no basis in state law to prosecute the young woman. She was in her seventh month when she tried to terminate her pregnancy.

Last-minute efforts to remove reference in the bill to "reckless" acts failed, feeding the uproar about a law that some people say would be impossible to implement and threatens basic freedoms of women. Statistics suggest that 15 to 20 per cent of recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage. "This creates a law that makes any pregnant woman who has a miscarriage potentially criminally liable for murder," said Missy Bird, director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund of Utah, part of the national organization that champions abortion rights.

Critics also note that the bill has no exemptions for women who suffer domestic abuse or who have addiction problems. They wonder, for example, about the putative case of a woman remaining with an abusive partner and suffering a miscarriage after an episode of violence. Would remaining in that relationship constitute "reckless" behavior, they ask?

Abortion remains deeply contentious in the United States, where, with some restrictions, it has been legal under the terms of the landmark Roe v Wade ruling by the Supreme Court of 1973. The issue returned to the front pages last month when Scott Roeder was tried and convicted for the murder in Kansas last August of one of the few doctors legally providing late-term abortions in the country.

The reaction to Utah's new initiative has verged in most quarters on disbelief, however. "For all these years the anti-choice movement has said 'we want to outlaw abortion, not put women in jail', but what this law says is 'no, we really want to put women in jail'," Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, wrote in a blog.

Similarly astonished is the syndicated columnist Dan Savage. "Where will this insanity end?" he wrote. "If every miscarriage is a potential homicide, how does Utah avoid launching a criminal investigation every time a woman has a miscarriage? And how is Utah supposed to know when a pregnant woman has had a miscarriage? You're going to have to create some sort of pregnancy registry to keep track of all those fetuses. Perhaps you could start issuing 'conception certificates' to women who get pregnant. And then, if there isn't a baby within nine months of the issuance of a conception certificate, the woman could be hauled in for questioning."

Utah is used to criticism from some of its more liberal neighbors for its socially conservative ways that range from allowing concealed guns on its state university campus to strict limits on alcohol sales. It has not gone unnoticed that consideration of the bill, with the potentially high costs it would entail, has coincided with a debate on canceling the last year of school for Utah children to help to save the state money.

[FONT=Times New Roman]© 2010 Independent/UK[/FONT]

[the last donut of the night]

This is so fucking ridiculous it isn't even funny.

[Lynx]

Mormonism = male supremacism

[Outinleftfield]

If Roe v. Wade protects women who purposely kill their fetus how can it not protect women who accidentally kill their fetus?

There was even a case where a pregnant woman was charged with child endangerment when she was caught on drugs. She had an abortion and the prosecutor dropped that charge.

[Rjevan]

Utah Governor Signs Controversial Law Charging Women and Girls With Murder for Miscarriages

[FONT=Georgia]March 9, 2010 | [/FONT]On Monday afternoon, a controversial Utah bill that charges pregnant women and girls with murder for having miscarriages caused by "intentional or knowing" acts, was signed into law by Gov. Gary Herbert.

Contrary to media reports last week, the "Criminal Homicide and Abortion Amendments" or HB12, which previously also applied to miscarriages caused by "reckless" acts, was never "withdrawn" by its sponsor, Republican Representative Carl Wimmer (who is crafting similar "model legislation" for other states). After the governor expressed concern over "possible unintended consequences," of the legislation as written, Rep. Wimmer swiftly introduced a new version, titled "Criminal Homicide and Abortion Revisions" (HB462), which omitted the word "reckless." Gov. Herbert signed the new bill and vetoed the old one.
[...]
“We are still passing legislation which seeks to criminalize women for their actions,” Marina Lowe, legislative and policy counsel for the ACLU of Utah, told AlterNet. “The language is still problematic.”
[...]
“What happens to women who are in abusive relationships?" she asks. "What happens if a woman threatens to leave the abuser, falls down the stairs and loses the baby? What if the abuser beats the woman and causes a miscarriage? Could he turn her in? Who would the prosecutor believe? What happens if a drug addict who’s trying to get clean loses her baby? Will she be brought up on murder charges?”

Rep. Wimmer claims such women would not be prosecuted because they didn’t knowingly act to terminate their pregnancies. But Bird says that is not necessarily the point.

“Even if the prosecutor doesn’t take the case, nothing precludes a woman from being brought to the attention of law enforcement in the first place,” she said. “What we’re doing is driving women underground and preventing them from getting health care and prenatal care.”
[...]
To put this in human terms, had Rep. Wimmer’s bill been on the books last spring -- and had the 17-year-old’s fetus not survived -- she would have faced a prison sentence of 15 years to life. Rep. Wimmer says he’s OK with that because the teenager has to face the "consequences of her barbaric actions.”

“It’s pretty rare for a politician to openly support jail time for girls who have abortions, no matter how desperate they seem to be” a 40-something abortion provider who asked to remain anonymous, told AlterNet. “This is extreme. Mark my words. If they can get away with this, they will try to make abortion illegal in the state of Utah. People need to wake up.”

“Even without this legislation, I wouldn’t say throwing women in jail for having miscarriages is outside the realm of possibility,” says the Utah ACLU’s Marina Lowe. “The larger issue is whether or not our young people have access to information and services, especially people in remote parts of the state."
[...]
Ironically, just three days after Utah’s House and Senate overwhelmingly passed Rep. Wimmer’s Criminal Homicide and Abortion Amendments bill, the Senate refused to even debate legislation that would have allowed teachers to provide comprehensive sex education to students who had their parent’s permission. Current state law says teachers can’t advocate or endorse the use of contraceptive methods or devices, according to Bird.

Every day in Utah, 12 teenage girls between the ages of 15 and 19 become pregnant. Chlamydia is the number one most reported communicable disease in the state, according to the Utah Department of Health. In 2007 there were 5,721 newly reported cases; 3,748 of those cases (66 percent) were diagnosed in individuals between the ages of 15 and 24. In Utah, you’re more likely to get chlamydia than chicken pox or the flu.

Full article: http://www.alternet.org/story/145956...r_miscarriages

Really, just amazing...

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

This is...pathetic...outrageous...insane...barbaric...w ords can't describe my hatred for this development! This is quite nearly the most heinous piece of legislation I've ever heard of in my life, without exaggeration.

There is a definite 'ban abortion' trajectory in this country. Take a look at the related contents of both versions of the "Obamacare" bill for example. Therein you'll find the most sweeping attacks on abortion rights since the Hyde Amendment that have come forward at the national level. It seems oddly and unintentionally symbolic that the measure that is the focus of this thread was passed, and in just such a context, so close to International Women's Day (March 8th). What a statement about this country's view of the worth of women on such an occasion.

[Crusade]

God, this is fucking unbelievable. My girlfriend experienced a miscarriage 2 years ago and she STILL cries about it today. She can barely speak about it without tearing up. The idea of someone criminalizing an already heartbreaking experience pisses me off. This is beyond belief. I'm in complete disbelief right now.

[Il Medico]

Wtf? Really?....Really?

Who the fuck criminalizes miscarriages??? And a fucking murder charge? Wtf!

[Quail]

I cannot believe how backward this is. For most women, I'm sure that actually suffering the miscarriage is enough. They don't need to have their behaviour scrutinised and then be blamed for the baby not surviving. Also, women who intentionally do dangerous things to themselves abort their babies might not be thinking straight at the time so it doesn't make sense to criminalise it. If abortion is illegal or difficult to get access to though, women who don't want their baby will more often resort to more dangerous ways of trying to abort the fetus.

[RedAnarchist]

This is what happens when you don't separate the church and the state - you get lunatic laws whose only real purpose is to keep any powerless group down. Religious people often tend to see pregnant women as walking incubators, only useful for looking after the foetus developing in their womb (especially if it's going to be a white male!).

And the last line is just so pathetic - "It has not gone unnoticed that consideration of the bill, with the potentially high costs it would entail, has coincided with a debate on canceling the last year of school for Utah children to help to save the state money."

There you go, people of Utah! We care more about attacking women who are already traumatised from some tragic ordeal, than actually teaching your children! See, we care!

[Antifa94]

This is disgusting, a most heinous crime. Gov. Herbert and Rev.Wimmer are evil.

[worldrambler]

It is sad that a state in the Union is allowed to do things as fucked up as this. A great example of why religion needs to stay out of politics.