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Utah Women May Face Murder Charges After Miscarriages
Outrage at bill that could jail women who 'recklessly' endanger unborn children
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.
Critics fear the new law could affect women who drink and miscarry 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.
98 Comments so far
Show All"Hey, there! Step right up and be a Mormon, Folks. Pseudo-religion, contributing to over population, championing capitalism, war, and backing the loss of freedoms for women are just SOME of our loving ways to serve the downfall of the U.S.A."
Why doesn't Utah hold hands with Texas and BOTH secede?!
They are not contiguous.
Be warned. They're taking over Idaho as well.
You should read some of the comments this piece has produced in the Independent. What if, instead of imprisoning women who drink, smoke, ski play tennis, walk along the pavement or any other risky practice we just ship them over to Afghanistan where they stand a much better chance of loosing thier babies by 'legal' means and Utah would save the cost of imprisonment!
The simple answer is YES!
It's the competition to see who can be the most backward. The dumb and dumberer contest.
You mean both the Mormon and the Catholic Churches? It's entirely possible.
Religion is the plague of the world. Religious idiots have no respect for human rights (unless they are the same religion) and hate everyone and everything.
Misogyny.
Pure and simple.
This is so sick.
If there is so much room in the Utah jails, they should imprison all the men who beat and abuse their women! A woman is BEATEN every six seconds in this country. LOCK EM ALL UP!!! They are significantly more dangerous to our society than a pregnant woman.
Sick sick sick sick sick. It's always blamed on the woman, isn't it? I agree with the comment about mysogyny.
Shame on all of those involved in this disgusting law!
According to the law and religions, life begins at first breath.
The following is from the link:'
http://www.pro-truth.net/05d-why5-8.html
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Several billion people hold religious beliefs that are in sharp contrast to those put forth by the ant-choice leaders.
The Jewish sacred text, the Talmud, states that life begins at birth.
The Christian Bible (Genesis 2:7) clearly states that life in a physical body begins at first breath.
The Moslem Koran (23.12-14 and 15.28ff) indirectly states that life begins at first breath.
The Eastern religious (Buddhism, Hinduism, etc) teach that each being is a pre-existing aspect of God (an eternal soul) that enters a series of physical bodies.
Native American religions teach that life begins at birth/first breath.
The atheists say there is no soul at all - - that we are just physical bodies that have somehow acquired consciousness.
The agnostics say nobody knows the answers to these philosophical questions.
Millions of spiritual people believe in God, but don't participate a formal religion. Most of these people believe that an independent human life begins at first breath. They also resent being forced to practice the ultra-conservative religion of the fundamentalist Christians.
For centuries, it has been commonly accepted in many cultures and in many religions that birth (first breath) is the beginning of an independent life.
When you examine the abortion issue from each of the three possible assumptions about life, Atheism, Reincarnation, and Religious One-life-ism, three very different meanings emerge. Two of these philosophies hold major errors and no one can prove which one is right.
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I'll add my own. According to a book of mine on reincarnation, the soul of the baby does not enter its boby until birth, when it has exited the mother. Before birth, the baby's soul just hovers around outside the body of the mother. Interesting.
Sioux Rose
ANN & CV: Good posts. You both raise valid, interesting points.
wow...forgive me for digressing for a minute...
my personal view is that this conception\birth arrangement is rather a 3-way agreement, between the father, mother and child...the mother, of course, donating her body for several months as the provider of resources and a building site for the new body for the child, and the primary source of care and sustenance following birth...your comment would reinforce this notion in interesting ways...
as with any arrangmenet, however, circumstances and integrity, on any part, may make the completion of the task difficult, or impossible...
my primary concern at this time is that humanity, via industrial and chemical activity, is damaging the very planetary components necessary for the creation of the body...any body...
thank you...
Churches maintain their power by control over sex, drugs and rock&roll. Up to the enlightenment, the ONLY venue for music (aside from fieldworkers) was the Church, so it was church music. Alcohol was available only through church celebrations and holydays. Sex was only sanctioned in marriage and marriage was entirely through the church.
Anything that frees those elements erodes the churchs' power.
Abortion and the Pill have freed sexuality from the churchs' grip, as has the coming out of Gays.
Of course they will fight these freedoms tooth and nail. Their very existance as organizations of power depend on it.
"Pregnant, Barefoot and In The Kitchen" An old movie coming soon to a theater near you.
The actions of the Utah legislature as well as the probable action of the governor have less to do with criminalizing women than with making a statement to a conservative electorate. The law ill be challenged and found unconstitutional for a variety of reasons. The whole Kabuki drama will play itself out with everyone winning: Voters will be pleased their reps supported conservative religious views and women will not, in the end, be criminalized.
>>The law ill be challenged and found unconstitutional for a variety of reasons.<< With the Republican dominated Courts of Appeal and the current SCOTUS I would not count too much on common sense prevailing here.
Gary
"A cult is a religion with no political power."
-- Tom Wolfe
Then perhaps THAT injustice will be the one that finally wakes people up and gets the majority motivated to actually protect their rights.
As the economy continues to sour and the health care crisis is not redressed, we will continue to see more of these sorry appeals by right wing politicians to the insecurities of the populace, a.k.a. mob mentality.
Given the major causes of miscarriage are exposure to enviromental pollutants, diets, stress , and exposure to unsafe conditions I look forward to this legislature passing laws that would see...
Executives of Power Companies and factories that pollute the enviroment imprisoned. Virtually every study ever done shows that exposure to chemicals and pollutants in the enviroment leads to higher incidents of miscarriage.
The raising of minimum wages and welfare rates. A second major cause of Miscarriage is improper nutrition. Many of the nations poorest simply can not afford the costs of a healthy diet. I look forward to the Utah legislature addressing this.
Extending maternity leave. Many women in Utah are first to work well into their last trimester.The added stress let alone the conditions she works under lead to higher instances of miscarriage. I look forward to the Utah Legislature providing extensive maternity leave.
Access to a Doctor and hospitals. Many that suffer miscarriages can not afford the costs of a doctor and or the co pays on existing insurance policies. Others may be covered by insurance but see Doctor visits rationed by the Insurance company. I look forward to the UTAH legislature providing free health care for these women to ensure the life of the fetus not endangered.
This is just another example of the entity called "man" seeking to demonstrate his Dominion over "life". "Man" is setting the terms under which life will come into this world. Its that whole "ownership Society" thing. The Patriarchal state OWNS the body of the woman.
Sioux Rose
GWNORTH: As always, you expand the questions to their logical broader conclusions.
Thank you for a very wise post.
I believe a similar case (yours) can be leveraged against the for-profit (only) health insurance companies. Human beings are now exposed to very poor foods, those contaminated by artificial fillers, shelf-life additives, irradiation, hormones, pesticide and other toxic residue. This form of "nourishment" added to the economic and related stresses of life mean that those behemoths that profit from human suffering are also the ones privileged to determine who will get assistance and who will not, regardless of the apparent protection clause in contracts. They are invested in the compromise of our health, yet get to decide if we will be eligible for assistance in remedying these effects. Quite the medical "Catch-22."
The fairness doctrine in a great many things has broken down.
Well following the New Constitution, all women in Utah should be considered potential murderesses and put in indefinite preventive detention.
I am, as a woman (and a native Utahn), worried and saddened by this. The 17 year old "woman" mentioned in the article is pitiable. Who in the world would go to the extreme measures that she did unless they were in a place of horrible fear and desperation. Poor child. And rather than want to help this girl, the wealthy, white, Mormon men who run Utah and spout "Christianity" at every turn, want a legal way to cast the first stone.
And I bet many of these men are cheaters and hypocrites. It goes along with the territory of being selfish, self-righteous and hard-hearted against women.
Joe
He was a beast of beasts who loathed all women, most especially his mother. He murdered many women. These women died long, slow, gruesome deaths. He particularly enjoyed forcing live serpents up into their private parts.
Who was he? Through his words he became one of the most powerful forces in history.
Cheney?
OK you got me. Who was he?
Joe
I'm thinking "Phil Spector".
· Yr Obd't Servant
You might be talking about some figure in the 'book of revelations, or daniel' or one of the other fictional accounts of doomsday.
Gratuitous, crude, sick comment.
Gilles De Rey?
One thing I will never understand is how these types of people can say that they love humanity, when their very actions show nothing but contempt. They obsess about the unborn, and completely ignore or even shortchange those who are already alive. In the case of Utah, they want to have the state imprison women for miscarrying, and to pay for that they want to stop educating the kids who are already here.
What type of psychosis would you have to have for that to even come CLOSE to making sense? They want to keep gov't out of medical decisions, and then they pass laws that put gov't squarely in the middle of a very personal, private medical decision.
It really seems that the thing about "conservatives" now days is that they keep wanting to push us further and further back. I think we've gone way too far backward, already, but these people are intent on making things even worse for us all than they have to this point. It's such a shame that progress scares so many people so much. It's up to us to drag them, kicking and screaming if need be. further forward than they have dragged us backward. We had better, or this country is over, and with the full intent from the "conservatives", who aren't interested in conserving anything. They won't be happy until the whole thing is destroyed from within.
Edward Abbey characterized the Mormons who run Utah by saying they would sell their grandmothers to Mobil Oil for a dollar. Boil the old lady down for the oil in her. That's the kind of men who run this state: Christians!
Mormons, for all their claims, are not Christians. For gosh sake they have their own "newer" testiment -- a work that makes the Holy Bible seem a sober history text in comparison. Why are they "Christian" any more than the followers of the Koran?
Gary
"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself."
-- Sir Richard Francis Burton
Sioux Rose
UTAH is right up there with the Taliban. Next they'll stone women who were "guilty" of being raped.
The Mormon religion sees women as chattle. Men were expected to have several wives and some still do. How DARE these misogynists legislate control over women's bodies.
There is no end to the depravity possible when the feminine side of the Divine force is not acknowledged in the least. Here is evidence in full.
Siouxrose: Your slight typo may actually be an extension of the language. Mormon women are not treated as well as either chattel or cattle. Mormon men dress well, keep their new cars sparkling, and buy all manner of lovely Chinese plastic crap at Wal-Mart. They feed and water their livestock well, and give them plenty of room to roam. Women are physically and psychologically tortured, and enjoy a status lower than either chattel or cattle in Utah. “Chattle” may be a new term to define this social evil.
Like the Taliban? Absolutely, when it comes to women and male privilege. They need a women's rebellion out there. Utah I mean. Mothers should finally stand up against laws and rules that threaten their daughters.
If that is too unlikely, maybe we should send some troops to liberate them.
Joe
Sioux Rose
JOE: If women seriously rebelled, many would end up in hospital emergency rooms. Male violence (as domestic abuse) exists in many households where one would never suspect it.
ACE: Thank you for correcting my spelling error. I seldom use (or read) that word. And thank you for telling us the inside "skinny" on life in the state of Mormon.
I saw a documentary on the History or Discovery Channel. I swear I am not making this up. Its theme was that some grifter tried to sell the elders of the Church of Mormon an alleged document wherein their prophet got insight from a talking salamander. The church paid something like a million dollars for this counterfeit. And it caused something of a scandal.
Adults who may entertain the belief that a talking lizard can found a religious institution are comical. I expect communion with the natural world and its creatures in shamanism. However the Mormons profess to be other.
In the final analysis, the progress (and level of civilization) in any society can largely be evaluated on the basis of how it treats its women.
Part of what allows domestic violence is the assent of women themselves, its acceptance by the police and lack of mechanisms and procedures to address it. It is very hard to stop it when women buy into the submission thing in the name of God's will or their own natural inferiority. I was hoping that seeing their daughters so threatened might energize a resistance. Who would want her daughter to suffer the sadness of a miscarriage and then be prosecuted for it? I do not have much hope that Mormon men, blinded by their inflated opinions of themselves, would take a moment to feel for their wives and daughters.
Medical personnel and police can be trained to detect abuse and report suspected domestic abuse regardless of the women's desire to do so. But to whom do they report it in such a sewn up political situation? I think we need a special prosecutor from outside the state to look into the physical abuse of women in Utah.
Joe
Sioux Rose
JOE: If all worked according to form you'd be right on track, but there is this mysterious element to "Of Human Bondage" that functions like Stockholm Syndrome. Some women feel, and often they are right to feel this way, that they cannot escape. Of the men that murder or batter women, one key trigger is when the woman makes an attempt to leave or divorce them. Some women believe the man will change. And many realize that they can't support their children without the income drawn from the male head of household. Much works against the interests of women in our society, and while progress indeed HAD BEEN MADE, the trends are reversing.
Susan Faludi documented the beginning of these recidivistic trends in "Backlash," a book that is important reading for those sensitive to this subject matter.
The worst insult one can hurl at a Mormon is to suggest that he/she is not "mainstream." These people attempt, their whole lives, to just "fit in" as if they were all eight years old. Destruction of children’s self esteem is just the beginning of their torture. Mormonism is NOT Christianity. It is the codified rantings of an insane person. It is a dangerous corporate cult that makes Scientology look like an innocent and upstanding congregation.
Please do NOT move here (Utah). Please do NOT come here on vacation. Don’t even THINK of running a business here. You will get ripped off. These folks hate all outsiders and non-believers. They steal so much money from hapless residents that they don’t need your hard-earned cash. They impose a sales tax on food. They impose a larger sales tax on labor, such as repairing something, or performing a service. I will take the alleged liberal “tax and spend” mentality over their “tax and tax” mentality any day. Conservatives, especially ones of this flavor, are the utmost cynics. They say they hate “big” government (whatever the hell that is) and taxes, but when they are in control, they go crazy in both areas. When you cross over any border into Utah, notice that everything is shabby and that nothing works quite right. This is because you are in a conservative slum, a result of their “good” governance and fiscal “responsibility.” Mix this economic repression with the fervor of a xenophobic and woman-hating cult and you have a truly nasty excuse for a culture.
Very sad.
Utah is a breathtakingly beautiful region of this country.
I'm truly sorry the experience of living there is so creepy.
"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." (Matthew 7:15 KJ)
acemoab, said "Please do NOT move here (Utah). Please do NOT come here on vacation. Don’t even THINK of running a business here. You will get ripped off. These folks hate all outsiders and non-believers."
Does that apply to the Sundance Film Festival and Park City too? Because I find it hard to believe this is true with respect to that part of UT, which is the only part I am familiar with.
Leland Mellot
So, who was this so called powerful person who did such things? YOu haven't said yet...
Their "magic" underwear is starting to become thong like, causing much distress that must be compensated for.
Why do men in cults or cults called religion hate women so much? As much or more than your average beater & murderers of women.
Only two things for me to be thankfull for: At 66 I still have a full head of hair, and, I was not born female. I could not live with the universal hate that is most often directed toward the female branch of humanity.
Sioux Rose
BARRY: The other night I got to watch Bill Maher's "Religulous." It was more than fascinating. There was a scene of a themepark in my own state Florida, devoted to enactments of Bible stories. Guests get to see children hanging out with dinosaurs, to give visual meaning to the Creation story that disavows evolution and the scientific dating of rocks and fossils.
In any case, people who are drawn to patriarchal religions want to possess some guarantee against the uncertainties (which these days are many, given the upping of the ante on likely outbreaks of violence, a direct result of the US trafficking in weapons from continent to shining continent), and thus cling to creeds based on strict adherence to rules. In this way they believe they will be saved from the wrath of an angry god, or go to the fires of hell. (It's amazing how many people believe this.)
The basis of this philosophy stems from the Bible and in particular, its creation myth. It's very telling that Eve is considered responsible for giving Adam the proverbial apple... as if HIS election process has nothing to do with the supposed spread of evil resulting from this act of innocence.
Much today that's relayed through the patriarchal religious microphones and pulpits can be distilled to this: "The Blame Eve Again, Syndrome." That, and only seeing God as the great father, all the while spilling the blood and resource-treasure of the Great Mother (Nature/Gaia), creates a rich basis for misogyny. I believe its roots can be found in the instances given, which is not to say there are not other causative, contributing factors.
Religious intollerence leads to this and Prop H8 and Mountain Meadow Massacres.
Poor old Eve and that apple - it was the intolerance created by the idea of 'good' and 'evil' that cast mankind out of the Garden. In this age of Aquarious we need a new Myth. Bring back the Goddess!
It's so obvious that everything in the bible relating to females came from the minds of men with total control and domination of women as their guiding motive. From being "created" from Adam's rib, to tempting Adam with the forbidden fruit and thereby damning all women forever, to the declaration that women must cover their heads in church or be shorn, and all the rest shows that need for domination, and it sure didn't come from any god. And if it did, as I've said many times to my Christian relatives and friends, then that is one sadistic god, and one I want no part of.
As for this thing with miscarriages, wasn't it during the late 1990s that the repuglicans in Congress tried to pass the same kind of law?
Years ago when I was a Christian and taught comparative religion, I believed and taught that Mormonism was a cult like Scientology, JW, etc. But in truth all religions are "cult" like, Christianity and its many divisions being a prime example.
Mormonism seems bizarre because of the magic underwear, males in the priesthood becoming "Gods", the infinite number of Gods, etc. But it is because most people in America, (even non Christians), have been raised in a society where Christianity is considered the norm. Take someone who has been living on Mars their entire life and subject them to Christianity or any of the other religions and they would think that we are all nuts.
I have no desire to go anywhere near Utah.