Utah Patriarchy Moves to Criminalize Miscarriage
Fri, March 5, 2010 
Republican Rep. Carl Wimmer will modify the legislation he’s introduced into the Utah legislature, removing language that could subject to prosecution for criminal homicide, a mother who miscarries because of ‘reckless behavior’.
Only Utah’s more enlightened governor Gary Herbert’s refusal to sign the legislation prevents it from becoming law in Utah.
No, this is not the Taliban talking in Afghanistan. This is Utah, in the United States of America. In Mexico, some states have passsed legislation putting women in prison for 50 years for having an abortion in a country where abortion is also legal. Months later, we see the possibility in action in the US.
Some people don’t believe that American women shouldn’t be charged for having a miscarriage. They argue that the burden of proof is on the women to prove that she wasn’t negligent during her pregnancy. The original language in Wimmer’s bill did criminalize iscarriage, in the most aggressive move against American women yet.
Any husband or the state could prosecute a woman who was negligent in his eyes, or a mother-in-law or sister’s eyes — really anyone — for any behavior that theoretically triggered a miscarriage. Presumably any husband who believed that his wife behaved irresponsibly in any way, thus inducing a miscarriage as if it’s typically a woman’s fault, could put her in jail for many years.
The state and her husband are in charge of a woman’s body in Utah. Woman is the incubator, nothing more, among Utah politicians. She might as well be a cow. Individual rights don’t belong to women in Utah, but to an embryo or fetus.
Any American woman of any age should think twice about accepting a job in the state of Utah.
In 1991 Utah banned all abortions, even though the law was basically unconstitutional and unenforceable because of Roe vs Wade, the US Supreme Court’s ruling that women are entitles to a safe abortion in America. Getting a legal abortion in Utah remains extremely difficult. Here are the procedures.
Factually-speaking, Wimmer’s new bill is aimed at preventing an isolated case of one woman who paid someone to beat her up, in hopes of having a miscarriage.
Both the House and Senate passed Wimmer’s original bill and the governor has until Monday to sign it, so the Legislature will be moving quickly to try to get the revised bill to Herbert’s desk by then.
One wonders if American women will every wake up to what’s actually going on in this country, before it’s too late.
I will not keep quiet and unopinionated on the total erosion of women’s rights that’s going on in this country. In the 70s, we would have been marching in the streets. Today, women just sit silent, leaving me clueless as to whether they will ever again stand up for their own rights.
I have no vision for the future of women in this country, exept that men and fundamentalist thinking will determine what we are allowed to be. This news in Utah jolts me to the core of my being. I feel like I am in Afghanistan and burqas are coming soon to Utah.
Just remember, ladies, that Utah is the top state in the country for consumption of subscription pornography. Based on their IP addresses for paid porn subscriptions: the biggest consumer, Utah, averaged 5.47 adult content subscriptions per 1000 home broadband users.
While these men are determined to legally control every aspect of a woman’s body, they’re having a fine time watching pornography. This is hypocrisy in its worst form. Anne via Salt Lake City Tribune.
Photo via chinagrrrl
Women Face 50 Years in Prison for Getting a Legal Abortion in Mexico
Reader Comments (2)
Thank you so much for exposing these atrocities and for expressing your opinions. Your authenticity, assertiveness and personal power inspire me daily Anne.
We need outrage and exposure of this in the mainstream.
How about a sitcom episode where a mother is to be put in prison for eating Mc Donald's, covering her grays with hair color and cleaning toilets while pregnant?
You're welcome Babu. Comments like yours make me understand that my writing and refusal has a purpose. Years ago, I was under police protection for a year -- some idiot said he was gong to kill me for my voice, and all were concerned. I was stalked for almost a year. He did silence me for decades and I left my radio show to pursue another career, but now I can't remain quiet.
It concerns me greatly that what is so obvious to me about the intentions of social conservatives to retake total control of women's bodies is so under-reported in mainstream media. The topic is packaged under 'abortion' legislation or the attack on Planned Parenthood, but it's actually a much bigger idea, as you write.
This topic deserves a NYTimes magazine article. The moment 'negligence' is attached to miscarriage, women ARE the vision you just described. For a party that claims to want to minimize government intervention in our lives, allowing the state to question a woman about her miscarriage should be CHILLING!!!
Social conservatives -- including several on the Supreme Court -- wish to undo the 'equal protection' clause, returning any interpretation of the Constitution back to its original writing. Women are screwed totally if this happens. I guess we retain the right to vote because that's an amendment to the constitution. But right to birth control is up in the air. Certainly women in as many as half the states could have their lives turned inside out if all these rights we take for granted are returned to the states, saying that state legislators decide women's rights. The way I understand the 'equal protection' clause, states could legislate that women have no right to work, and the Supreme Court wouldn't overrule the law. The intention is definitely to turn back the clock to the 1950s with women return to the home -- even home schooling, which social conservatives prefer.