Below is a collage of information, statistics, recent reports and pathetic commentary about the criminalization of women and pregnancy.
Jessica González-Rojas and Lynn Paltrow on Abortion Rights Activism
New Mexico Bill Would Imprison Rape Victims Who Receive Abortions
In New Mexico, women who are raped would have to carry pregnancy to term
or face prison. (photo: Getty Images)
Should a recently introduced bill in New Mexico become law, rape victims will be required to carry their pregnancies to term during their sexual assault trials or face charges of “tampering with evidence.”
Under HB 206, if a woman ended her pregnancy after being raped, both she and her doctor would be charged with a felony punishable by up to 3 years in state prison:
Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime.Sexual assault trials are infamously grueling for survivors, who are often subjected to character assassination and other attempts to discredit their accounts. State Rep. Cathrynn Brown’s (R) bill would add the forced choice between prison or an unwanted pregnancy to these proceedings.
After several failed GOP candidates, including Todd Akin (R-MO) and Richard Mourdock (R-IN), made offensive comments about rape victims during the last election season, Republican consultants launched sensitivity training to teach candidates how to avoid talking about rape. But GOP policy speaks for itself. At the federal level, former vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) introduced a failed bill that would negate sexual assault that are not deemed “forcible rape.” And another New Mexico lawmaker, Gov. Susana Martinez (R), advanced a proposal to require women who become pregnant from rape to prove they were “forcibly raped” in order to qualify for childcare assistance.
In addition to burdening victims of sexual assault, Brown’s bill also reveals some hypocrisy in the anti-abortion community. While anti-choice advocates maintain that a fetus should be afforded the full rights of personhood, charging abortion as “tampering with evidence” effectively turns the fetus into an object. This isn’t the first time so-called pro-life supporters have dropped the fetal personhood crusade when it was convenient — last year, a Catholic hospital in Colorado reversed its stance on fetal personhood in a malpractice suit, arguing in court that the term “person” should only apply to individuals who have already been born.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/01/24/1490691/new-mexico-lawmaker-rape-victims-who-get-abortions-should-be-arrested-for-tampering-with-evidence/
Is miscarriage murder? States that put fetal rights ahead of a mother's say so
The effort to undo Roe v Wade threatens not just reproductive rights but the very definition of personhood for American women
Several states have pursued murder charges for women who have miscarried.
Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian
Back in 1872, just after she was arrested for casting an illegal vote, Susan B Anthony gave a rousing speech in which she posed the question of whether women are actually persons. Her point, of course, was that if women were indeed flesh and blood persons, then there could be no legal basis under the constitution to deny them a vote. It took nearly 50 more years – women finally achieved suffrage in 1920 – to get a definitive answer to what was a rhetorical question.
Now, however, less than 100 years after that long-delayed answer, the question of whether women – or at least, pregnant women – are still persons endowed with all the human, civil, and constitutional rights that personhood bestows, is once again in play. And the evidence suggests that the answer is, at best, a "maybe".
This week, just in time for the 40th anniversary of Roe v Wade, the National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) released a study (pdf) on the "criminalization of pregnancy", as reported last week by the Guardian's Karen McVeigh. It details hundreds of cases of women who were arrested, forced to undergo medical procedures, and held in jails, prisons, or mental institutions.
These arrests and detentions were made possible by the relentless quest to undo Roe v Wade and restrict access to legal abortions. But there is a bigger issue, according to NAPW's executive director Lynn Paltrow:
"We are no longer just talking about [attacks on] reproductive rights, but whether, in the guise of trying to end just abortion rights, we are going to remove pregnant women from the community of constitutional persons."That sentence should send chills up the spine of any woman in America who is pregnant or who may someday become pregnant (which covers quite a few of us). There are now anti-foeticide laws in 38 states. Colorado and Mississippi have tried (and intend to try again) to pass personhood laws that would grant full constitutional rights to a fertilized egg.
Georgia tried, and thankfully failed, to pass a law that would have had all miscarriages investigated as possible homicides. Alabama did pass a chemical endangerment law that is being used to prosecute (mostly poor and minority) pregnant women suspected of taking drugs. The upshot of all this attempted legislation is that terminating a pregnancy is still lawful, but hundreds of women who miscarry or have stillborn babies can be charged with murder and sentenced as murderers.
Many reproductive rights advocates have long suspected that these various laws are more about controlling women than genuine attempts to protect babies. I would argue that anyone genuinely pro-life should be demanding universal healthcare for pregnant women, not prison terms for a failure to provide their unborn babies with a level of care and well-being they themselves do not enjoy.
Whatever the intention of these laws, what has become clear is that rather than protecting the rights of the fetus, this legislation steadily erodes the rights of the women on whom those fetuses are dependent.
The Roe v Wade decision explicitly rejected the argument that fetuses were to be treated as separate constitutional persons under the law. Yet, we now have documented evidence of hundreds of women being forced to undergo medical procedures against their will, against their doctors' advice and sometimes in restraints, on the grounds that the fetus has its own set of rights separate from those of its mother.
Lynn Paltrow recounts the tragic case of Angela Carder, who was ordered by a court to undergo caesarian surgery – against the advice of her doctors, her family, and her own wishes.
"Ms Carder was 27 years-old and 25 weeks pregnant when she became critically ill. She, her family and her attending physicians all agreed on treatment designed to keep her alive for as long as possible. The hospital however called an emergency hearing to determine the rights of the fetus.A higher court later ruled that Carder's rights had been violated – scant comfort to her grieving family. The dissenting judge in that ruling, however, gave some frightening insight into what women are up against: he argued that the viable unborn child is a person with rights separate from the pregnant woman, and that an expectant mother by "undertaking to bear another human being places herself in a special class of persons".
"Despite knowing that Caesarian surgery could kill Ms Carder, the court ordered it, claiming that the fetus had independent legal rights. The fetus was born alive but died two hours later. Angela Carder died two days later, with the surgery listed as a contributing factor."
I don't imagine that "special class of persons" is one Susan B Anthony, or indeed, any self-respecting woman, would care to be a part of. In this class, a pregnant woman can apparently be expected to forgo her own right to life, whether or not there is a chance that the fetus she is carrying might outlive her.
We (women, I mean) should be grateful that, for now, this particular judge's dissenting opinion is not the law of the land. But these increasingly common opinions, and not the law of the land, are driving continued arrests, detentions, and illegal interventions into the lives of pregnant women.
What does this mean for American women in the future? I do not know, but what is certain is that as legal battles to undo abortion rights continue (and they will), women – and men who care about them – need to realize it's no longer just reproductive rights we have to worry about, but our basic civil and human rights.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/25/miscarriage-murder-roevwade-personhood
The State of Abortion, 40 Years After Roe v. Wade
January 23, 2013
To mark the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision on Jan. 22, 2013, the Guttmacher Institute — a sexual and reproductive health policy nonprofit — has created five infographics on the state of abortion in America.
Some highlights: By age 45, one in three women will have an abortion. The majority of these — about 58 percent — will happen in their twenties. About 60 percent will already have at least one child.
Unintended pregnancy rates are rising among poor people and falling among higher-income people, but abortion rates are still about five times higher among people living below the poverty line. Rates are also significantly higher among people of color than among white people.
State barriers to abortion are also increasing. In 2012 alone, 43 restrictions on abortion were put into place in 19 states. In 2011, 92 were enacted. The majority of states have some barrier to abortion access on the books.
Click on LINK for additional graphics.
[Visit the Guttmacher Institute website.]
Some highlights: By age 45, one in three women will have an abortion. The majority of these — about 58 percent — will happen in their twenties. About 60 percent will already have at least one child.
Unintended pregnancy rates are rising among poor people and falling among higher-income people, but abortion rates are still about five times higher among people living below the poverty line. Rates are also significantly higher among people of color than among white people.
State barriers to abortion are also increasing. In 2012 alone, 43 restrictions on abortion were put into place in 19 states. In 2011, 92 were enacted. The majority of states have some barrier to abortion access on the books.
Click on LINK for additional graphics.
Related Features
After Tiller: 40 Years After Roe v. Wade, Abortion Providers Continue Work of Slain Kansas Doctor
Forty years
after the landmark Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion, the new
documentary After Tiller follows the only four doctors left in the
United States who are known to provide abortions in the third trimester. In
2009, their colleague, Dr. George Tiller, was assassinated while attending
church in Wichita, Kansas. The four doctors depicted in the film have also
braved threats, harassment and the emotional weight of the stories they hear to
provide women with a desperately needed medical procedure. We're joined by the
directors of After Tiller, Lana Wilson and Martha Shane. Watch/Listen/Read
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