Utah lawmakers have just passed a bill that would charge a woman with criminal homicide for obtaining an illegal abortion or inducing a miscarriage, whether intentionally or through "reckless" behavior.
There are a few narrowly defined exceptions, including failure to comply with medical advice, refusal to submit to a physician's recommended treatment, and negligence (which in legal terms is apparently a less serious crime than recklessness). Otherwise, the law holds women accountable for criminal homicide if they intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly "cause the death of another human being, including an unborn child at any stage of its development," outside the parameters of legal abortion.
The bill was ostensibly a response to a recent Utah case in which a 17-year-old, 7 months pregnant girl was protected from prosecution after she paid a man $150 to beat her in a failed attempt to induce miscarriage. At that time, Utah -- like most other states -- did not hold women criminally liable for seeking illegal abortion, but instead punished those who performed them. It seems Utah lawmakers found it unjust that this desperate girl was not sent to prison. Yet in their efforts to close the supposed loophole, they have now opened up a gaping hole, into which many women who had no desire for an abortion are liable to fall.
As various advocacy groups have pointed out, the terms of the bill are so subjective that a woman could theoretically be charged for criminal homicide if she: fails to wear a seat-belt, gets in a car accident and suffers a miscarriage; uses legal or illegal drugs and the baby is stillborn; carries multiples as a result of fertility treatment, and one or more of the babies die; or remains with a partner whom she knows to be abusive, and she suffers a miscarriage after he beats her particularly violently.
As Utah's ACLU wrote in a letter to Utah's governor in protest of the law, "If this bill is signed into law, women in this state will essentially be in the uncomfortable and unfortunate position of having to prove that the abortions they obtain (or miscarriages they suffer) are not unlawful." In effect, women suffering the trauma of losing a baby they desired could end up facing the double trauma of being charged with causing the baby's death.
Don't think it's possible that women could be held accountable for obviously unintentional harm to the fetuses they're carrying? As fellow blogger Roxy MtJoy made clear last week, you might want to think again.
Says the National Advocates for Pregnant Women: "Once the state has the power to decide what a women's "intent" is, it does not really matter what her intent actually is." Giving police and prosecutors such enormous discretion to decide who will and will not be arrested and charged under this law is an invitation for innocent women (and their families) to suffer.
As both the ACLU and National Advocates for Pregnant Women point out, most states give women immunity from prosecution for a reason -- it's in the interest of both maternal and fetal health. If women are fearful of prosecution for harmful behavior, they won't get the prenatal care they need (which is harmful behavior in itself). Likewise, if they know they will be charged for getting an illegal abortion, they won't seek medical help if the procedure goes wrong. And then there's the fact that prosecuting women for homicide for something that half the country believes should be perfectly legal is just not good policy.
So, yeah, this is a terrible law all around. Please ask the governor of Utah not to sign it into law.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Utah's New Abortion Law Threatens to Punish Innocent Women for Miscarriages
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