Virginia bill on reporting fetal deaths

[elbales]

There's a post on Daily Kos about a bill before the Virginia assembly that would require a woman whose fetus dies while she's not under a doctor's care to report the death within 12 hours, with failure to comply punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor. That's up there with arson, statutory rape, and stalking. Now, health care providers already have to report these deaths to the Commonwealth of Virginia; the data is sent to the CDC. Data collected includes such delightful particulars as the woman's full name, whether she is married to the father, her SSN, and the weight of the fetus. The bill doesn't modify these requirements when the woman reports the fetal death herself. (So how am I supposed to weigh that, exactly?) The bill's author says that it's supposed to target people who abandon babies in Dumpsters and such. However, the poster says that, as written, the bill would appear to apply to miscarriages and says nothing about abandoning babies.

Yeah.

This is just really, really wrong. It violates the right to privacy fourteen ways from Sunday, and it doesn't even do what the author says it's supposed to do. How does it benefit the commonwealth to force a grieving woman who's just suffered a miscarriage to call the cops to report it? Some readers are speculating that it's just one step on that holy grail of far-right-wing conservatives: the official declaration that, under the laws of the land, a fetus is a person and therefore cannot, under the laws of the land, be aborted. (This is distinct from the entirely private and personal belief about whether a fetus is a person, which I think everyone should get to determine for her- or himself.)

Anyway: Anyone live in Virginia? Seems to me that everyone in the state should call his or her rep right now and complain about this bill. Or anyway first thing Monday morning.

Scary.

Comments

[kevinvaughn.livejournal.com]

Alas, Babylon.

I put my friend Rissa who lives in Manassas on it.

[elbales]

You go. ♥ the Kevin.

[kevinvaughn.livejournal.com]

Judging from my most recent post, I went apparently. I don't think I care anymore. These times are making me the kind of liberal on can be only when they have seen such times.

I hope Rissa can do something. I really, really hope.

[litgoddess.livejournal.com]

Grrrrrrrr

Right, because people toss babies in dumpsters ALL THE TIME and a misdemeanor charge will most certainly deter freaked out teenagers and crack heads enough to keep the babies.

I hate that men get to make decisions about women's bodies.

[elbales]

Yeah, I'm like, When you can pop 'em out, you can talk to me about my body. Ugh.

[kevinvaughn.livejournal.com]

My mother was a crack addict who had the decency to at least leave her children in the hospital.

[dizzyditz.livejournal.com]

The law is flawed, but that doens't mean that trying to deter people from dumpstering their babies (when there are more people waiting to adopt than there are children) is a bad initiative. If you've gone through childbirth, the least you can do is donate your child to someone who wants it. That part has nothing to do with bodies. The law is messed up, but not the impetus that was (hopefully) behind it.

[elbales]

Oh, I agree--it's a good idea to do those no-blame drop-off laws. Definitely. Only this bill just does. Not. Deal with that stuff. Scary.

BTW, according to the DKos page I linked to... Virginia already has such a law.

!!

[litgoddess.livejournal.com]

Agreed that an unwanted child should be brought to a place that can get s/he cared for -- sadly, generally speaking, we still have way more children in the system than we have people who are willing to adopt. The fate that befalls the children I know who are in group homes.... but that's a whole other issue.

Just how many baby-dumping incidences has Virginia had, I'd be curious to know?

Trying to prevent people from dumping babies by writing a law is ridiculous; women (and in some cases, men) who are willing to abandon a newborn are not going to care that s/he may be written up for a misdemeanor. If the baby dies, s/he is up for murder. If s/he is caught and the baby lives, s/he still will be charged with child endangerment, at the least. If this law was to be deterrent, it would logically follow the two prior scenarios of breaking the law would be enough to stop would-be baby dumpers.

That people exist in the world who are willing to put children (at any age) in harm's way is a symptom of much larger problems that no law can address.

I disagree that the law has nothing to do with women's bodies. If I miscarry, it's no one's business but my own, and possibly my doctor's if there's a potentiality for complications depending on how late in the term I am. A woman can detect that she's pregnant at 3 weeks. Something like 20%-30% of all pregnancies never make it through the first trimester (I've heard upwards of between 40%-50%). That has nothing to do with the mother and everything to do with nature. So now I am at risk to be brought up on charges because I was pregnant last month but not this month because the pregnancy wasn't viable? That's ridiculous. No government agency has the right to that information. No govenment should be forcing a woman to report if a pregnancy has been terminated, spontenously or otherwise.

And what if I choose to terminate the pregnancy? That will need to be reported to the CDC as well, with my name and SSN. Hell no.

Maybe it's time to read A Handmaid's Tale again.

Given the attack the Bush administration has waged on and helped foster at the state level against women's rights, I have to question the motive of each piece of legislation, especially when the supposed intention seems to have no connection to the way it was actually written; and, with the way it is written, it violates a person's right to privacy. It sounds like an emotional appeal being exploited to have legislation passed to force women to give up information associated with women's reproductive rights.

In other words, the ol' bait and switch.

If it is passed, it will be interesting if it will be able to be enforced. I wonder if this is another ploy to further erode Roe v. Wade...

[emidala.livejournal.com]

elizabeth♥, perhaps you need to clean your screen (http://60gp.ovh.net/~cleanyou/)?

[elbales]

I saw that! SO CUTE.