Abortion is legal in the United States in part because, as a 2007 World Health Organization study shows, abortion bans don't actually prevent abortions. Women can terminate their pregnancies whether it's legal or not; all the government can do is make the procedure more dangerous by banning medical supervision.
When countries go the extra mile and try to ban women from altering their own bodily functions to prevent a pregnancy, the results are Orwellian--as we see in much of Latin America, where forensic vagina specialists investigate hospitalized women for suspicious-looking miscarriages.
Or Utah or Kentucky, where proposed legislation would criminalize miscarriages in cases where prosecutors do not feel that survivors have done enough to protect their pregnancies. The situation in Utah is particularly dire: the bill has passed both chambers of the legislature, and currently awaits a signature or veto by the governor.
Women's rights groups, including National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), are working to fight bills that violate the civil liberties of pregnant women. But as long as conservative legislators see embryos and fetuses as citizens, and pregnant women as property of the state, pregnancy regulation is likely to remain an integral part of the pro-life movement.
Related: Falling Down Pregnant Can Get You Arrested in Iowa
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absoooooooooooooooolutly nuts when will this crazyness end? yike gid help us all
I would hardly consider a ban on miscarriages considering “pregnant women as property of the state”. Under Roe v. Wade states have the right to protect the fetus as a living human being (which would be a citizen!) in the third trimester. So to me it would seem perfectly logical to say a pregnant woman must not intentionally harm the fetus-citizen at the very least in the last trimester. Furthermore, for women who have intentional miscarriages when they can’t have an abortion, it SHOULD be just as illegal as having a medical operation done by a non-professional. Because that’s exactly what it is.
@Liz It must suck to live in a world where all you see around you are murderers. That’s not logical, it’s a sickness. Please get help.
Here we are in a place where women who endure miscarriages will have to endure, what, getting “unbirth certificates.” Since most women who suffer miscarriages want to recover and focus on having their next baby, I find such a process — “prove to us that you’re not a murderer” — especially disgusting.
Let’s demand that the wives of these politicians (yes, most of them are men) open up their medical records to public scrutiny. They’re so eager to break down doors, let’s start with theirs.
@Tammi- your perspective is very narrow. Do you suppose that when a woman miscarries that the doctor’s don’t naturally want to know why it happened? Don’t they already try to see if it was preventable? I haven’t heard anything about putting women on trial or “proving you’re not a murderer”, it’s simply a question of whether there is evidence, during the already normal post-miscarriage exams, that the miscarriage was self-inflicted. If it is found that the woman did something to incur a miscarry, then they should be held accountable for that since they would have violated the rights of another human being (the fetus).
@tom- your statement about fetuses are citizens and women are property of the state perfectly reveals your inability to objectively report on current events. Logically (and I hope you can follow this), if a fetus is a living human being, and living human beings are protected under our Constitution as having certain rights, no person should be allowed to violate those without consequences. Now, you may argue that a fetus isn’t a “person”, and we could debate that, but that’s not what you were saying. You were suggesting that since we are trying to protect a fetus’ rights that we only view women as property. This is not only horribly illogical, it is factually incorrect.
This is addressed mostly to Charlie. I have had 3 spontaneous miscarriages. Only one required a doctor’s help, as they were very early in the pregnancies. If you make having a natural miscarriage something that becomes a legal hassle for women to go through, you risk having women simply hide their pregnancies as long as possible.
There is not much most doctors can do anyway, in terms of early pregnancy care, so why should I seek prof medical care if it just might lead to some other obstacle to go through??? Does not life give us enough of those anyway?
We should be doing more in this country to make seeking preconception and prenatal care easy and affordable. We should be doing something serious to address chemical pollution that surrounds us daily, and no doubt leads to some of those miscarriages.