Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning
The March 3, 2010 segment of Democracy Now is so shocking that it is best seen. In Utah, lawmakers have approved a measure that could potentially expose a pregnant woman to murder charges if she is stuck in an abusive relationship, is beaten and miscarries. When one of two twins is a still birth, the mother is charged with murder because she refused a C-section. In Iowa, a woman is arrested when she miscarries after a fall down the stairs.
All this amongst efforts by the health insurance cartel to treat spousal abuse as a pre-existing condition.
Perhaps we should post signs: Warning: Pregnancy will place you in legal jeopardy.
UPDATE, 3/10/10: Democracy Now reported that Utah’s Republican Governor Gary Herbert signed the anti-choice measure into law. “The…bill would allow women to be charged with murder if they commit ‘an intentional or knowing act’ that causes a miscarriage. The bill initially included language that would have also punished women for ‘reckless’ acts. But despite the revision, critics still say the measure could target women for all kinds of actions, including staying with an abusive partner.”
The 01/04/10 Democracy Now! segment, Utah Abortion Bill Could Punish Women for Miscarriages, Domestic Violence follows below…
Thanks for bringing attention to the Utah measure. It’s wording is so vague and broad being stuck in an abusive relationship (that leads to harm of a fetus) is but one concern.
Treatment for some medical illness and disease are abortion inducing or require an abortion to save the life and health of a pregnant patient, such as chemotherapy and various other cancer treatment’s. Utah has put into law what other fundies believe regarding the value of a woman’s life v. her fetus life. As the following link points out in Texas a wingnut christian group targets “breast cancer events that do not highlight abortion”.
The American Taliban is active and making gains. The Niemöller poem may later need to be rewritten to start: ‘First they came for women’s rights and I did not speak out—because I was not a woman…’
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/0...texas-taliban/
“Christian Hate Group ‘Repent Amarillo’ Terrorizes Texas Town, Harassing Gays, Liberals, And Other ‘Sinners’ ”
“An evangelical Christian hate group called “Repent Amarillo†is reportedly terrorizing the town of Amarillo, Texas. Repent fashions itself as a sort of militia and targets a wide range of community members they deem offensive to their theology: gays, liberal Christians, Muslims, environmentalists, breast cancer events that do not highlight abortion, Halloween, “spring break events,†and pornography shops. On its website, Repent has posted a “Warfare Map†of its enemies in town.
Calling Repent an “American Taliban,†blogger Charles Johnson notes that the group’s moniker “Army of God†is a rough translation of “Hezbollah.†Led by a man named David Grisham, a security guard at a nuclear-bomb facility called Pantex, Repent first gained media attention in Texas following a campaign to boycott Houston for electing a gay mayor. The group, which is associated with Raven Ministries, collaborates with other Christian groups as well as forced pregnancy advocacy associations like “Bound 4 Life.†“
If we could just get these whacko fundies to go after each others’ apostasy, the problem could take care of itself. You know, kind of like the shia and the sunni.
Hey, look at all those sperm being killed in gay butts!:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world...ay-sex-scandal
Reminds me of this gem from Emo Phillips:
Lottakatz & Cosimo Rondo, I wish to thank you for your excellent comments.
The Emo Phillips quote is hilarious. Lottakatz’s reference to Reinhold Neimoller is extraordinarily apropos.
All men of conscience need to understand that these Taliban-like, Christian fundamentalist laws are directed at our mothers, our wives, our daughters.
What hyperbole! What misinformation. What does an “abusive” relationship have to do with killing an unborn child(abortion).
What does abortion have to do with natural miscarriage – nothing.
Natural miscarriage is not abortion. Intentional miscarriage (ie hiring someone to beat you up so as to trigger a miscarriage) is just a cruder form of abortion so naturally would be considered an abortion.
If I die naturally it is not murder, if you kick me intentionally to cause harm, and I die, that is. Simple.
Unfortunately, Unbelievable #4, and I know this is a bit much for your fundamentalist mind, the language of the Utah statute is so poorly written that it does not limit prosecution to “intentional miscarriage.” It includes “reckless,” which can include remaining in an abusive relationship knowing that one of the risks is that the woman will be beaten by her spouse or boyfriend.
While you’re at it, unbelievable, perhaps you would like to weigh in on Lottakatz’s concern that a woman who miscarries from cancer treatment could be regarded as having recklessly endangered the life of the fetus.
Are you Christian fundamentalists so blinded by your desire to tell everyone else how they should live their lives; is your desire to see that every pregnancy is carried to term such that you would risk the life of the mother?
Who are you to make such a decision for our mothers, our wives, our daughters?
Oh, and Unbelievable @4:
I’d have been more impressed about your “sanctity of life” concerns if you had joined with Brad Friedman in condemning Bill O’Reilly’s incitements relating to the cold-blooded murder of Dr. George Tiller.
It’s war on women. Pure and simple. And so-called liberals don’t understand why we get very, very upset with the current health care bills, when Dems try to appease people like Stupak, or point out that due to the Hyde amendment there is no federal funding for abortion anyway, so there is nothing to worry about.
The extremists like the Utah legislature are very scary, indeed. But it’s the so-called liberals who do not stand up for women’s reproductive rights that embolden and increase the grip that the extremists have on women. Talk about an abusive relationship!
Lora, I would commend you to read my earlier posts — “Single-Payer and the ‘Democracy Deficit’,” “Wing-Nut Mobs Provide Cover for Obama/Baucus Health Care Betrayal” and “ObamaCare: Right Diagnosis, Wrong Prescription.”
The so-called Senate “reform” is a total scam designed to further enrich the health insurance cartel and the pharmaceutical industries. The division is not between “liberal” and “conservative,” but between the corrupt sector of the Democratic Party — corporate Dems — who want to pass an Orwellian measure they can label “reform” in order to get re-elected and Republicans who will reject even the most modest effort to rescue the 44,000 Americans who die each year for nothing more than want of coverage because they see, in the health care defeat, an opportunity to take out another “Contract on America.”
The only rational solution is a single-payer, Medicare for All system, which includes the full panoply of a woman’s right to choose, including the very personal decision as to the very difficult choice to end a pregnancy.
Ernest,
You are so right. I have read your earlier posts.
Let me add to my comment #7 to say: There are multiple reasons to object to the Health Care Reform bills in the Senate and the House. They are a travesty of reform. They do nothing for women’s reproductive rights and will quite likely set them back even further than they are now.
Also, I believe that one reason state legislatures are able to get away with passing repressive and damaging laws against women is because the so-called liberals in Congress have done nothing to protect women on a national scale and are apparently about to make it even harder for women to get the health care they so desperately need.
I wanted to tell you about some genius new web sites: http://www.gayorhomeschooled.com, http://www.gayorevengelical.com, and http://www.gayormormon.com. Someone should have thought of this before. I seriously cannot get better than 50% correct. What do you think?”
Ernest re: #5 response, thanks for responding, you anticipated my response exactly. Further, regarding medical treatment v. terminating a pregnancy; it should be pointed out that an outright termination at the diagnosis or onset of treatment would probably be less problematic legally than to continue a pregnancy during a treatment that was not certain to kill the fetus through a spontaneous abortion but, in fact MIGHT.
Thinking ahead is not the strong point of this law. One could argue that attempts at legal sanction under such circumstances should be left to prosecutorial discretion, but why should it? Why should there be two different legal outcomes based on the same set of facts be built into a law? It’s bad law to do so.
Lora #7 & 9, I agree that the over-regulation at every step of the decision making process regarding abortion as well as the over-regulation at every step of the medical process itself (To include every step in the establishment and licensing process for establishing a clinic or incorporating the procedure into existing health care facilities.) is an assault on a woman’s right to privacy and as such is an assault on women, a war as you characterized it.
If one agrees that the control of ones own body is the most fundamental right one enjoys than what has happened to the right to privacy, as it applies to women’s reproductive health including abortion, is nothing short of war at the state’s level.
I’ll bet that if you lived in Utah instead of, say, Alaska…and you were at a meeting in Texas and got on a plane AFTER YOUR WATER BROKE, flew back to Utah, drove 2 hours to a hospital, you might be subject to arrest for intentionally trying to cause a miscarriage.
Lottakatz @ 11 wrote:
I’m thinking that a likely scenario perhaps in the not-too-far future, or perhaps now, would be that a doctor will refuse to treat the pregnant woman appropriately — i.e. withhold life-saving medical treatment — for fear of injuring or aborting the fetus. IOW, risk the woman’s health and perhaps life in order for her carry a fetus to term or close to term, and avoid risk of deformity or abortion. One wonders whether an abortion in advance of treatment would be obtainable in certain areas even under these conditions. And as far as getting insurance to pay for it…!
this is religious insanity run amuck.
When are we as a species going to climb out from under that oppressive rock of religion and into the 21st century?
ALL religion is nothing but fairy tales and should be treated as such, those that believe these fairy tales should be institutionalized.
It is a sickness, a mind plague.