Go to jail for having a miscarriage
Yeah, you heard me right.
Virginia Delegate John Cosgrove (Nice moustache, asshole.) is proposing a bill (HB1677), "Report of Fetal Death by mother penalty" that would require a woman who has a miscarriage to report the occurrence within 12 hours to a local law enforcement agency.
If the woman fails to do so she could get up to 12 months in jail and $2,500 fine.
I'm too fucking appalled to even write any more.
Go to Daily Kos for the full story. Be prepared for the overwhelming desire to scream out loud.
Posted by Jessica - January 07, 2005, at 11:07AM
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The assumption is...well...it was an "illegal" abortion gone bad.
Now they're proposing laws in ANTICIPATION of Rowe v. Wade being overturned.
Once again...you get the government you DESERVE.
Two ideas have popped out in the blogging about this to me: 1, that this is probably an unlikely bill that's been proposed to distract outrage from a smaller, more "reasonable" bill along these lines that actually DOES get passed; if you write to him, casually mention that you know he might be doing that. 2, if this were to pass, several commenters have suggested sending used maxipads and tampons and calling the police each month "just in case." I don't think the police would be thrilled with this bill either.
While reading the linked article, The Black Eyed Peas "Let's Get Retarded" came on. How appropriate.
Like Anne said,if such a bill was passed, every time you started your period (and had sex recently) you should call to report a possible fetal death.
Use a keeper or something, and mention that there might be an embryo in there somewhere.
Shades of Romania.
My initial thought was that it's a back-door way to outlaw birth control pills, emergency contraception and the like. the women-hating religious right has so frequently hammered it into their flock that "birth begins at conception" that many think that any medication that prevents implantation is per se an abortificant.
Since these nuts use religion to justify everything.
What about the Bible's restrictions on "spilling your seed"?
Are they gonna start hauling teenage boys off to jail?
Is my right hand now a public enemy?
Nah, this is clearly about punishing women. I'd be very, very surprised if anything approaching this comes up in regards to men. Not that I am bitter ;)
I suggest mailing in used tampons to the Rep. Cosgrove with instructions on how your religion buries its dead so he can deal with it.
I read an analysis about this earlier that stated that basically this is one of the first steps to establishing personhood for fetuses. First you acknowledge their "death" and then you start doing things like issuing "death certificates" and you're well on the road to establishing personhood.
That's always been one of their major loopholes in the anti-abortion argument-- the fact is, we as a society DON'T regard them as full persons, we DON'T tend to bury miscarried fetuses and we DON'T issue death certificates or certify that they ever existed.
But at any rate, I can't wait to hear what our resident troll, Mark, has to say about this. (Yes, I'm rolling my eyes so hard right now that they hurt...)
Once abortion becomes illegal, this is a good way to track medical abortions.
Anne is right. The provision expressly applies only to a "woman" ("mother" in an earlier draft).
Here's an update from ema: http://thewelltimedperiod.blogspot.com/2005/01/del-cosgrove-dont-relax-just-yet.html
Well, I told some girl friends about this last night and they were also completely appalled. This won't get far.
Does this idiot just want to piss off everyone?
Doesn't he think that even some pro-lifers feel that, you know, a woman who has just LOST HER BABY might want to grieve with her family, and not have to call the police to report it?