Dispatch from Gilead: criminalizing miscarriage
by digby
Like a lot of reproductive rights advocates, I've often been accused of being hysterical about the anti-abortion right's agenda. I'm often told that there is no desire to deny women their agency and that we really should lighten up. When we point out that the logical end point of the anti-abortion zealots' arguments for conferring "personhood" from the moment of conception is to criminalize miscarriage, we're told that we are being ridiculous and that we need to calm down.
Not so ridiculous:
If a woman in Virginia has a miscarriage, they must report it within 24 hours to the police or risk going to jail for a full year. At least, that’s what would have happened if a bill introduced by Virginia state Sen. Mark Obenshain (R) had become law.
And yet, the Virginia Republican Party wants to make Obenshain into the state’s top prosecutor. This weekend, Virginia Republicans selected Obenshain as their nominee to replace tea party stalwart Ken Cuccinelli (R) as the state’s attorney general.
Under Obenshain’s bill, which was introduced in 2009,
When a fetal death occurs without medical attendance upon the mother at or after the delivery or abortion, the mother or someone acting on her behalf shall, within 24 hours, report the fetal death, location of the remains, and identity of the mother to the local or state police or sheriff’s department of the city or county where the fetal death occurred. No one shall remove, destroy, or otherwise dispose of any remains without the express authorization of law-enforcement officials or the medical examiner. Any person violating the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.
That means they could face up to one year in prison. But don't worry your pretty little heads about it girls, they probably won't use it except on the really "bad" girls who deserve it.
Meanwhile, did you know that this is already on the books in Virginia?
Even without Obenshain’s bill, Virginia law already treats many miscarriages as potential crimes. Under existing Virginia law, “[w]hen a fetal death occurs without medical attendance upon the mother at or after the delivery or abortion or when inquiry or investigation by a medical examiner is required, the medical examiner shall investigate the cause of fetal death and shall complete and sign the medical certification portion of the fetal death report within twenty-four hours after being notified of a fetal death.”
That's almost as chilling as far as I'm concerned. Criminalizing a failure to report miscarriage takes it to a more sinister level, but I don't know why it's any of the state's business at all. It's an extremely common, natural occurrence after all. Half the time we don't even know it's happened. They might as well require reporting of nocturnal emissions or menstrual periods. It's an extremely inappropriate intrusion on the internal bodily functions of women.
At least as it stands, the only time the state is involved is if they are informed of an "unattended" fetal death, but just having that on the books means that the state can treat miscarriage (and now possibly the practice of medical abortion with oral mifepristone) as something requiring an official investigation. Sure, it probably doesn't happen very often and is used mostly to gather statistics. But then you inevitably have some patriarchal throwback like Mark Obenshain come along to try to take it to the next level. After all, he was just proposing to give the existing law a little bit more teeth wasn't he?
And he's running for Attorney General to replace this guy, so it's not as if these nuts can't get elected. Indeed, that neanderthal is so successful he's now running for Governor.
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