Womb cops of Utah?

Utah Bill Criminalizes Miscarriage

A bill passed by the Utah House and Senate this week and waiting for the governor's signature, will make it a crime for a woman to have a miscarriage, and make induced abortion a crime in some instances.

According Lynn M. Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, what makes Utah's proposed law unique is that it is specifically designed to be punitive toward pregnant women, not those who might assist or cause an illegal abortion or unintended miscarriage.

The bill passed by legislators amends Utah's criminal statute to allow the state to charge a woman with criminal homicide for inducing a miscarriage or obtaining an illegal abortion. The basis for the law was a recent case in which a 17-year-old girl, who was seven months pregnant, paid a man $150 to beat her in an attempt to cause a miscarriage. Although the girl gave birth to a baby later given up for adoption, she was initially charged with attempted murder. However the charges were dropped because, at the time, under Utah state law a woman could not be prosecuted for attempting to arrange an abortion, lawful or unlawful.

The bill passed by the Utah legislature would change that. While the bill does not affect legally obtained abortions, it criminalizes any actions taken by women to induce a miscarriage or abortion outside of a doctor's care, with penalties including up to life in prison.

Although the incident regarding the 17-year-old who actually paid for a beating (!) is an extreme case, I have to believe that young woman is a pretty rare example, and I'd bet that she had other ongoing issues at the time as well (although I don't know the details of the case, that's too often how things are.) The part that I've highlighted is the part that makes me envision a kind of "womb cop", whose business would be to try and sniff out whether a miscarriage was just a random organic event--or whether the evil mother-to-be engaged in foul play.

If a woman has a dangerous situation, such as a physically abusive relationship or chemical dependency--this penalizes her for having a crappy life and puts the burden on her to try and fix something that she might really need help for, but will be reluctant to cop to for fear she's going to get popped on a probable attempted feticide. That's crazy. I would love it if women left abusive jerks or could just get clean and have their healthy kids--but it doesn't always work that way. If the abuser is also the father of your baby, or if you actually have chemical dependency, extricating yourself from that is not that simple. And unfortunately, sometimes people go with the flow. Their life is what it is, and the devil they know may put them in jeopardy, but at least they aren't on the street.

I worry that women who are in those kinds of situations would be penalized. I also worry about "baby daddy drama" where partners who are estranged could bring accusations against a pregnant woman to try and control her. In this way, this legislation could be used like a weapon to make someone's life hell.

While abortion itself is lawful, I think a law that is intended to protect the fetus at the possible expense of the mother's life just doesn't make a lot of sense. I see a lot of potential problems with it--not the least of which is making pregnant females a possible criminal class. And even making women who might have had a tragic medical loss of their baby possibly have to answer questions as if they were criminals, not bereaved. It doesn't seem right to me.