Utah criminalizes miscarriage

[sdhonda]

Ha!

Now I gotta go find an equally ironic pro-life peice. You've set me quite a task.

[Heathen]

It's been illegal in America since 2004. No medical reason is accepted, there is a total ban on late-term abortion.

I'm sure you weren't trying to mislead, but this is completely untrue. What you're referring to, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act 2003, didn't ban all late-term abortion, it banned one particular, rarely used, method known as IDX*.

Fair enough - one procedure outlawed. Keep in mind that a doctor often does not know which procedure will be required in a late-term abortion until the procedure is underway (please refer to previous link). Leaving them the risk that they will be breaking the law by choosing the needed procedure of extraction. What is the long-term effect of this? It means that the laws restricting abortions have an umbrella effect. Doctors are afraid to perform any procedure that may cost them their job (hospital policy), their freedom (incarceration), or, thanks to extremists, their lives. A culture of fear is perpetuated. Fewer doctors learn to perform late-term abortions because it is not worth the risk to them. Services diminish. And women die.

I'll grant you that the increased overwatch by non-medical bodies will likely make physicians more hesitant to perform abortions than they otherwise would be, but only by a minuscule amount.

You don't appear to have read further than my first paragraph. There is no liability for performing IDX where it is necessary to save the life of the mother (to be technically correct, on the off chance there are any other lawyers reading, liability is unchanged, a complete defence is simply rendered), and the fact that the mother's life is at risk is something the physician will know in advance.

[Tally]

Bit of a bump here, but just a thought (and I didn't have time to read all the thread, so forgive me if I repeat someone else's thoughts).

The whole thing seems wacky, but if they are going to criminalize something, isn't it interesting that they criminalize the woman's behaviours, not those of the man who agrees to beat her as an answer to an unwanted pregnancy? (Ok, well, likely those are considered criminal already. I hope. The article didn't say what happened to the man involved, which I find odd.) To morph into a slightly different but - I feel - very related topic, it emphasizes to me a problem with North American (especially American) culture, wherein we tell women what not to do to be safe (don't walk alone, don't go out at night alone, don't have long easily grabbed hair, don't make yourself a target). But what we don't do is attempt to minimize this kind of violence by teaching our boys that it's absolutely unacceptable behaviour.

It is a well known fact that 1 in every 4 women in North America is raped or sexually assaulted. If we brought up our entire society amidst the cultural understanding that rape, sexual assault and domestic abuse are as unthinkable as, say, cannibalism, don't you think it would have a more positive effect on our society?

As I say, a bit of a digression, but I feel it's related. If anything, I'd argue that Utah is a pretty damn mysogynist state, politically speaking. This sure makes it sound that way.

To be a bit more directly relevant, I also don't agree with anti-abortion laws, because I think they violate a woman's right to have control over her own body.

[RvLeshrac]

http://bit.ly/cbDVGi

A woman in Iowa was arrested for falling down a flight of stairs. She confided in her doctor that she'd had doubts about having the kid early on, so the doctor called the cops.

[Theremin]

Huh, knew I was right to judge.