Criminalizing Miscarriage

[Haruo]

This strikes me as an offensive miscarriage of legislative responsibility. . I'm interested in Georgians' take on it and on how it is being presented locally. William? Neil? What sort of investigations are anticipated? Can smoking one cigarette be treated as negligent homicide? My mother had a miscarriage before I was born. If she were not dead I would advise her to steer clear of that state.

[William Thornton]

The 'fetal heartbeat bill' has been passed and is waiting for the governor's signature. It's the pro life legislative crusade du jour with several states considering or passing such bills. It will be challenged. The talk about miscarriage criminality is the usual leftist, pro-abortion scare talk. As we have come to expect, the debate is highly strident with uncompromising positions on both sides. I don't have a problem with the heartbeat bill. Hollywood doesn't like it, and Georgia is one of the top states for film production. Big Industry here in Georgia doesn't like it because they sell seats, cokes, and caulk and would rather not have any controversy.

Stacy Abrams, darling of the Democrats these days for VP, the bill 'evil', etc. Not that she has much of a chance for pro life voters anyway but the idea that attempting to preserve a beating heart is 'evil' is striking and she may expect to be quoted on her statements during the campaign. Someone ought to find a prominent Democrat who will not favor strangling a living baby in the delivery room.

[Dave Roberts]

One of the real problems with this issue is that there is never any dialogue about the questions of abortion. I am not in favor of abortions, but I have lived long enough to see situations in which it was the lesser evil. No one wants to discuss how these situations might evolve. Absolutism on either side does not lead to any lessening of the misuse of a medical procedure that should be very rare. It just offers ammunition for the next skirmish.

[KeithE]

I am for the fetal heartbeat bill in GA or anywhere. I am for adoption that can be facilitated by paying mothers (who do not want their babies) some subsidies (medical care, delivery costs) if they are needy. Many families are standing in line for children they cannot have naturally.

Fetuses are at the very least a potential human being and have value. This country is not “full”.

But I realize it will not have much effect - abortions will still happen. And I am not for strong penalties (e.g. murder or any felony) against mothers or doctors. It is simply too much of a divided issue (points on each side) to punish violators.

But just because it will not have much effect, does not mean the bill should not be passed, signed and implemented.

Where are any “leftists" calling miscarriage criminal abortion if this is enacted? Haruo or William or anyone.

[Sandy]

I'm opposed to abortion as a means of birth control, and that opposition is directly the result of my Christian faith and convictions. The problem with attempting to formulate any legislation to restrict the practice is that there are cases when it is a medically necessary procedure, and that doesn't necessarily fit into a political agenda. And in the case of laws like this, you're not talking about convictions, you're talking about how to use this issue to the political advantage of one side in attempts to get a Supreme Court ruling in order to get some kind of legal precedent set. So it becomes hypocritical for conservatives to throw around rhetoric about "strangling a living baby in the delivery room."

The fact of the matter is that in this country, at this time, a pretty substantial majority of the population, including some who claim to hold sincere Christian beliefs, do not hold the view that life begins at conception, and that it is a personal choice to abort a fetus prior to its viability outside the womb, not a matter of right or wrong. So the rhetoric and the battle has moved to abortion after viability, where almost all abortions are performed for medical, not birth control reasons. The claim that laws like this can have the kind of effect characterized as "criminalizing miscarriage" is not just "leftist, pro-abortion scare talk." It is a common problem anytime you have an attempt to legislate how a doctor can perform a medical procedure. Most of the people who support this kind of legislation are perfectly fine with gun laws that allow nut jobs to murder children in their classroom. End of that argument.

This country has churches everywhere which have invested trillions of dollars in comfortable facilities in which most of them rattle around like a b-b in a cannon. We have massive numbers of paid staff, professionally trained in multi-billion dollar colleges and universities, and spend multiple millions on high dollar praise music and the professionals who produce it for an hour of religious theater on Sunday morning. With all of that, we are losing ground in the battle to retain members and evangelize their children, and not making any real difference among the non-Christian population. Somewhere, in the expenditure of all of those resources, you would think that someone would have figured out that holding a perspective of the sanctity of human life that extends to conception requires life transformation, not a piece of legislation or a court ruling that is most likely never going to take place.

[William Thornton]

[KeithE]

[Dave Roberts]

[Tim Bonney]

[Haruo]

[Rvaughn]

Leland, there are a few questions I would have about the whole incident, like whether or not she was under the influence of drugs and alcohol -- since they acquitted her of that.

Also makes me wonder if the devout sacrosanct “religion” that many people seem to have concerning seat-belts played into the decision.

[Haruo]

[Rvaughn]

[Haruo]

[Neil Heath]

To get back to the topic at hand and provide some further info, I understand that the topic's title may come from the fact that the Ga. bill criminalizes abortions done after there is a fetal heartbeat, approx. 6 weeks in, with some exceptions. Before that change it was allowable until 20 weeks.

Many women do not even know they are pregnant at that early stage, and thus have not been to a doctor. They may therefore be engaging in activities harmful to a fetus, such as alcohol and drug use, reckless activities like extreme sports, etc. that might cause a miscarriage. Said woman could be subject to criminal prosecution if the law was pushed to its logical conclusion. And then there are the spontaneous abortions that nature does on its own. I've heard the numbers but don't know what they are at the moment. A person could be blamed for causing that too by her actions, and held legally liable for the "death".

There are similar laws and even more extreme ones in other states. I feel sure this law will be challenged in court, as they have been in other states passing similar bills. And that's really the goal of these laws. They know the laws are too extreme to be accepted and will be challenged. They want that, hoping to go to the Supreme Court in an attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade. That's pretty much the bottom line.

[Tim Bonney]

And, I would suspect, that most of the people making this decision are people who can't carry babies, don't have uteruses and as usual seem to think it is important to spend their time policing women's bodies.

[Rvaughn]

[Haruo]

8-month-old child? Normally in my experience that means a child born eight months ago, not one conceived eight months ago and born five days ago. I think the scriptural rule was you weren't quite a full human being till you were eight days old.

[Rvaughn]

[Sandy]

[Haruo]

[Rvaughn]

Sorry for the confusion. I assumed a reference to the only eight-month old referenced in the situation would be clear, and did not account for your thinking I misread it.

[Haruo]

My understanding is this was not a miscarriage. The baby was born by emergency delivery.

[Rvaughn]