Anti Abortion is a Freight Train with No Breaks


I've been writing for several years about incarceration of women who have miscarriages. A parallel  is "crime prevention" in the form of monitoring pregnant women. In recent years, anti abortion vigilantes have been using laws which are not about abortion to prosecute women who have miscarriages.

Whenever I bring this up, anti abortion people comment that pregnant women were not prosecuted before Roe v Wade. That was then. Now things are different.

The New York Times pointed out these vigilantes, frustrated with the inability to overturn Roe, are turning to other laws that put the power of government against pregnant women. A case in New York State sentenced a woman to up to nine years in prison because an eight month fetus died in a car wreck and she was not wearing a seat belt. She was charged with manslaughter. Fortunately, it was later overturned.

In the South, a woman panicked when twins at 30 some weeks were stillborn at home. Instead of calling a doctor, she disposed of the bodies. When they were found she turned herself in. She is in prison for three years under a law called, "abuse of a corpse."

That law was meant for people who hide a crime. In this case, an autopsy confirmed the fetuses were dead before the miscarriage. But, anti abortion vigilantes want to move further into a law enforcement role for miscarriages. In the "corpse" law they saw an opening.

The disappearance of a human being requires an investigation today. If a fetus were ruled to be a human being its disappearance would also require an investigation.

The prosecution of a pregnant woman for not wearing a seat belt reveals there is no limit on how far anti abortion politics will go to prosecute women. A woman who slipped on ice and had a miscarriage might go to jail. The same with falling down some stairs.

Anti abortion zealots need to know their own family members might be headed for jail merely for having a miscarriage.


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