legislative antics in Virginia

[cellio]

It's only the first week of January, and already we have a strong contender for most reprehensible legislation of the year. If this passes, then in the state of Virginia a woman who has a miscarriage will be required to notify government authorities within 12 hours or face a year in jail. Yes, you read that right. (Info from celebrin.)

I am rarely speechless, but I'm having trouble putting my outrage into words right now.

Update Sat 9:30pm: According to the person who posted the news initially, there has been some progress based on the huge outcry (thanks to paquerette for the update). There's still more that needs to be done, but the response from the blogosphere seems to have made a difference. Stay tuned.

Comments

[cecerose.livejournal.com]

It's simple: They must DIE.

What kind of idiot?!?!?!?!!

Never mind. I'm having my tubes tied, dammit.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I just posted this in my journal too. I can't imagine that people are going to agree to abide by this law.

I also forsee that if it passes there are going to be a lot of husbands making calls along the lines of "I'd like to report a miscarriage." That's not going to go over well.

[akitrom.livejournal.com]

Does anybody have any idea what purpose the bill's sponsor thinks needs addressing?

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

It appears to be a measure intended to curb illegal abortions.
Oh, wait, abortion's not illegal in Virginia.


The concept itself isn't so bad, it's the heavy penalty and the short time period that make it really stupid. I will optimisitically assume that they want the death statistics for things like determining "Hey, an abnormally high number of miscarriages are happening in that city over there, we should send someone to check the water and test for radiation leaks from the nuclear plant next door."

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Just based on the language of the bill, this is ridiculous.

I believe my state rep will get a letter... what is the purpose of this, and if the purpose itself is reasonable, how *should* it be accomplished?-- 'cause this sure ain't the right way to do it.

[paquerette.livejournal.com]

According to a reply that someone claims in comments on this blog to have received:

"This bill, which was requested by the Chesapeake Police Department, is an attempt to reduce the number of "trashcan" babies that are born and then abandoned in trashcans, toilets, or elsewhere to die from exposure or worse. There are numerous examples of these tragic deaths in Virginia, many in Northern Virginia and also in Hampton Roads. Once the body of a child is found, if the death of that child is undetermined by a coroner, the person abandoning that child can only be charged with "the improper disposal of a human body".

That is the intent of the bill. I normally do not answer abusive and condescending emails. Please try to ask questions of people as you would have questions asked of you. You know.....kind of like the Golden Rule."

[paquerette.livejournal.com]

See my above comment re: intent. Although I highly doubt that this guy is being truthful about his intent.

I do think the concept is bad. The wording of this is such that any sexually active woman with any possibility of having conceived could be breaking this law every time she menstruates. Women on hormonal birth control too, since they may have a fertilized egg, aka a "product of conception." It would be nice to have data, like you said, to show problems with water or such, but early miscarriage is so frequent, and often women don't know about it, or don't want to acknowledge that that's what happened.

[paquerette.livejournal.com]

See my comment farther up about his stated purpose. Rather like killing a gnat with a nuclear bomb, as someone else said.

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

The wording of this is such that any sexually active woman with any possibility of having conceived could be breaking this law every time she menstruates.

On the other hand, there would be no way to convict her due to a complete lack of evidence.

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

Oops! My previous reply (since deleted) gave you the same link as the one referenced in celebrin's blog.

But I still say it's an awesome article that highlights just how onerous this bill would be for women have miscarriages (which is a horrible enough thing to have to experience without having to also call the police and fill out intrusive paperwork) about it.

Such a statistic wouldn't prove much. Miscarriages sometimes just happen, often for no reason. "1 pregnancy in 5" is a common statistic, and it usually happens in the first trimester, before many doctors even start obstetrical care. It's even more common as a mother ages, so a city with a high number of miscarriages might just have more women starting families later in life, more families with cats (toxoplasmosis), more pregnant women eating unheated deli meats tainted with listeria...

[anniemal.livejournal.com]

and this while they are making it harder to have a legal abortion. They want to make a woman who's miscarried report it within 12 hrs? Given that I was wanted and breach, delivered as such and crippled up Mom for 3wks.,... it's horrible, and no, I don't like living there.

my state shames me, and my options confound me.

[siderea]

1) It is legal grounds for any VA cop with a chip on his shoulder to arrest any woman, and force her to go through a state-mandated vaginal exam. Charming.

2) Gosh, do you think there might be some MDs in VA who would be happy to sell their services to the Commonwealth, looking at women's cervices so they can testify, "Yep, she is dialated, and she's not pregnant now, and she didn't report losing it...."?

[paquerette.livejournal.com]

If she doesn't even know; yes, you're correct. I can't see how they'd find out. But I think that it's entirely possible that if a woman knows she's pregnant, and loses it very early, she might talk about it with close friends, she might write in her lj or blog about it, or talk to sympathetic people on message boards about miscarriage. All it would take would be one person pissed off at her to make a phone call, and there they have a confession that she had an "illegal miscarriage." Rather like VA's illustrious sodomy laws, it's the sort of thing that's wide open for selective prosecution as personal revenge.

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

Rather like VA's illustrious sodomy laws, it's the sort of thing that's wide open for selective prosecution as personal revenge.

In my previous comment, I was forgetting to account for the probable lack of virtue and sense on the part of the prosecutors and police officers. I can only blame a failure of realism--those happen to me sometimes. :)

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

It is legal grounds for any VA cop with a chip on his shoulder to arrest any woman, and force her to go through a state-mandated vaginal exam.

Ideally, you don't arrest someone unless you have good reason to believe that they're guilty, and you get in trouble for arresting excessively for no reason.

I realize that this doesn't happen in practice. If the bit about the summary execution of the exam after arrest is written into the law (I didn't read the law's text, just the commentary), then it's more prone to abuse than is reasonable--such things shouldn't be forced except by court order.

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

So, the only aspect of this thing I might consider good is the possible public health benefit of these statistics. If they're not of much use, then the rather draconian provisions of the rest of the law would be uncalled for.

But I still say it's an awesome article that highlights just how onerous this bill would be for women have miscarriages (which is a horrible enough thing to have to experience without having to also call the police and fill out intrusive paperwork) about it.

That bit is irreparably stupid. There's no reason not to let the physician handle it, since they're in such a better position to do it in terms of both information and emotional state.

[zachkessin.livejournal.com]

Does anyone know what the chances of this passing are? I mean it could be one of those things that has no chance of passing, in which case its a moot point.

I really don't know. But wow is this dumb.

[cellio]

I did, and I don't live in VA, but not being personally affected doesn't make it less absurd. What are they smoking in the state capitol?

[cellio]

It smells like one of those laws that can really only be used for harrassment (as someone else pointed out below). Ridiculous.

[cellio]

So let's see. If I'm going to deliver a child and dump it in a trashcan because I don't want to be responsible for it, which is already a violation of probably several existing laws, I'm going to be deterred by this new law? Sheesh.

[cellio]

This is the part that really angers me. The privacy violation is bad enough on its own, but did they even think about the impact this would have on the woman? Here you are, happily chugging along in your pregnancy (if not happily, then you're already probably under medical care so you won't have to report personally), and then blam, you miscarry out of the blue. It hasn't happened to me, but it's happened to friends and I've seen the emotional trauma it causes. And in the midst of all this, within twelve hours the woman is supposed to make a formal report? Within that time she probably hasn't even told all her family memebers! Have they no compassion? Have they no shred of decency remaining?

[cellio]

Ideally, you don't arrest someone unless you have good reason to believe that they're guilty, and you get in trouble for arresting excessively for no reason.

Ideally, sure. But in the real world, abuse of power happens all the time. Even if there is some good behind this -- a premise I don't grant -- the potential for abuse, combined with the damage to the woman and the violation of privacy, makes it a bad idea.

Since some (many? most? I don't know) miscarriages that are recognizable as such happen under circumstances where some medical professional is aware of the event, it seems like any data-gathering benefit could be achieved without compelling the woman. Doctors and hospitals are already required to report things like highly-communicable diseases for the public good (scraped of identifying info, in theory). If there's a public-health benefit, a similar mechanism could be employed. Either way, some people will get missed; I'm not going to assume, for instance, that every single person who is HIV-positive has made a doctor aware of that, yet I don't think there's an analogous reporting requirement on the individual.

[cellio]

It's ok. You have to let the inner optimist out to play occasionally. :-)

[cellio]

But I still say it's an awesome article that highlights just how onerous this bill would be for women have miscarriages (which is a horrible enough thing to have to experience without having to also call the police and fill out intrusive paperwork) about it.

Yes. As I just commented above, the impact on the woman is severe. If you've had an unanticipated miscarriage, you are probably in no state of mind to be dealing with reporting requirements in that timeframe! Have they no compassion and decency? What public benefit could possibly counterbalance that?

And yeah, my understanding is that miscarriages in the first trimester are pretty darn common. If they must go in this direction (and I don't see why they must), they should at least limit it to second- and third-trimester events. Those are much more likely to be noticed, and are less frequent and thus more interesting.

[cellio]

Not entirely moot -- every attempt to do something this stupid marginally increases the chance of a future stupid act staying on the books, as just a few more people think about it and say "yeah that would be a good idea". (Skeptics are already skeptics, so I think the "boy is that stupid" side picks up fewer people for future fights.)

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

This makes no sense. I can't help but think about how much more pain it could cause the people I know who are struggling with infertility. If they are trying to crack down on the trashcan-baby phenomenon, they ought to work harder to catch and punish the offenders rather than harrassing the rest of us decent folk.

[cecerose.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree -- because it's not relevant to me directly doesn't mean it's not wrong -- sorry about how that came out. This takes "state rights" to a whole new level. Ironic, isn't it?

What are they smoking in the state capitol?

Certainly not pot -- otherwise they wouldn't be such evil fiends. My bet? Crack, cocaine or meth -- since it makes you paranoid and delusional. as heck.