(no subject)

[eirias]

In Virginia, it may soon be a criminal offense to fail to report a miscarriage to the police within twelve hours - regardless of gestational age. Here is the full text of the bill.

There is an essay on this topic at some progressive sites, including the Daily Kos and Democracy for Virginia. This really should not be a progressive women's issue - this should be a family issue. I can't imagine that any family of any ideological stripe wants to spend the first few hours after an early miscarriage filling out paperwork; and as some have pointed out, strict compliance with this law would necessitate that sexually active women report each and every menstrual cycle to the authorities, just to be sure.

Thanks to leora for the heads-up.

Comments

[kirin]

According to another thread (so this is something like third hand, take with appropriate salt grains) the author of the bill has stated an intent to prevent "trash can babies" where a viable birth is disposed of. Of course, if this is really the intent, the wording of the bill is ludicrous.

A more cynical interpretation is that this is a bald-faced ploy to simply advance the notion of a fetus as a full human being with all attendant rights from conception, and has no other practical effects.

[darlox.livejournal.com]

If I had to guess, this is more likely a response to the woman in Missouri who kidnapped the fetus and claimed it was her own. Every 6 months or so, it seems one of these stories crop up somewhere in the USA.

It's very probably yet another misguided attempt to use legislation to prevent insanity. If a woman or hospital reports a miscarriage, it's going to look awfully strange to all involved when she turns up with a live baby 6 months later.

Crap like this only tends to turn up when legislators are knee-jerking to something. What's that old saying... never attribute to malice what can be counted as stupidity?