New law (may) require mothers to notify state of miscarriage under penalty of law.
 

http://democracyforvirginia.typepad....ative_sen.html
I know many of you are farkers too, so you may have caught this, but i was blown when i saw it. I dont even like America, why cant they leave their laws off our bodies?

That's a horribly misleading thread title. In fact, it's downright wrong. The article says not reporting miscarriages within 12 hours would be illegal. There is a difference.

There is indeed a difference. But the law is still an invasion of privacy that I personally find unacceptable. It is not at all suprising though, in the current climate this country enjoys.

Either way in all that trauma forgetting to report it is hardly a punishable offence. They might as well be illegal 12 hours isn't a long time really.

Yes, it is indeed invasive. I understand why it might be necessary however. Yes, it seems insensitive, but that's our government for you. No real way to tip toe around something so sensitive.

I don’t think a semantics argument changes the completely god awful implications. that’s an evil suggestion, that only some government greedhead would even conceive of. The way things snowball anymore it'll take two month until you've got to call the police every time you go to the bathroom. I'll keep my right to privacy, thank you very much.

I fail to understand why this is any of the government's business.

It's not semantics, it's right and wrong. The thread title is wrong and should be changed.

It's a stupid law though. It never ceases to amaze me the terrible laws people put into place.

What, exactly, is an evil suggestion?

And yes, disposing of human remains properly is the government's business. Sounds cold, I know. Believe me when I say I am in a position to know.

Making it so that if my girlfriend had a miscarriage that she would have to call some faceless Bureaucrat? Thats some pretty evil stuff, friend.

I'd really love to see a less one-sided reference to this law -- but alas - -searching on HB1677, nothing except Democracy for Virginia shows up


Can any other sources for this be provided... Maybe giving a less emotional accouting of the law... Friends making hot cocoa does nothing to sway my opinion...

thread title changed.


having recently moved to virginia, this is just another not-suprise... shortly after i got out here they passed a law that basically removed any rights domestic partners had... they forbade them from owning property, having rights to the other's children, even power of attourney.

this state is a fucked up repugnant place full of backward people who could, in my opinion, all die to the betterment of humanity as a whole. i'm here because the wife is going to school here. as soon as that's done, we're leaving, plain and simple. i refuse to voluntarily live in such a backwards place. the problem is that much of the nation is slowly turning the same way under the guise of religious enlightenment.

maleficient: you can find the writeup here:

http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp...051+ful+HB1677

the exerpt in question:

Evil? Hardly. Insensitive? Yes.

I didn't see where it said the mother had to personally report it. Perhaps a friend, relative or neighbor could do it? Just a thought. But this is an emotional issue, so I'm really not surprised at people's reactions.

Wow this has to be a joke. Do you think this will pass?

I'll tell you coppertop, i attempt to incite. I'm tired of the apathy from which so many Americans suffer. You're given the right to a difference of opinion in this country, but so few take advantage of it. I see this as a kick to the pants of human rights, so i'll spread the word and upset as many people as i can with it. I never said i was right or that anyone had to agree with me, just that i consider it to be villainy. Pardon my exaggerations, but that’s all that they are, emotional outburts from a fed-up kid who reads the news too often.

If someone dies you report it to the police. Why can't you report a miscarriage? It's to make sure that it wasn't illegally aborted. It only would protect the mother and child. Sure, I see how after having a misscarriage is tramatizing, but a phone call made by a spouse or friend on behalf of the woman would most likely be acceptable and should not be that big of a deal.

It's wrong and no one business except the mothers. Period.

yeah, women should have the right to have secrets and stuff

Besides this not being the governments business, should this law pass it could possibly prevent women from seeking proper prenatal care. Would the doctor be required to pass on the information if she chose not to? Would a woman choose not to have medical care for her pregnancy to prevent this? This is just too intrusive for my taste.

Without secrets women just survive....and barely.

How come women's groups and the ACLU don't have this front and center in the media? Is the bill that buried that it's escaped notice, or is more being read into that is really there. If anything, women's groups, especially NARAL, would be most interested in this law because what's the next step, a woman has an abortion, then has to call the police department and report herself?

Currently, if the miscarriage occurs in the presence of a doctor (Do midwives count as a healthcare professional) does the miscarraige still get reported, what if the woman has an abortion, does that get reported to the fetal death bureau? Why shouldn't it be the responsibility of the doctor to report it? Since numbers of abortions yearly get recorded, I'd imagine that someone is reporting them, and surely not the woman.

what good does this law have at all??


if they don't track babies from conception, why do they need to know when they die???

while there at it, they should require us to have a permit each time we have sex!

This is ridiculous, pure and simple. Why do miscarriages need to be included in vital statistics? What could possibly be so important about those vital statistics that the mother needs to report WITHIN 12 HOURS? Give me a break.

This is information a woman should be allowed to keep to herself.

Yeah....lets just get 30% of pregnant women to give a call and tell some pencil pusher "oh, by the way....I lost my baby today".

I dont know why....but this really pisses me off.

Here is a little info to show the frequency of occurance:


As many as 30 percent of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, half of them before the woman even realizes she is pregnant. Fortunately, most women who miscarry, even more than once, can become pregnant again and give birth to a healthy baby. If you have had a miscarriage and want to try again, work with your doctor to learn the reason for the loss and to plan future pregnancies. Closely monitored pregnancies are especially important for women who have miscarried.

Your doctor may refer to a miscarriage as a “spontaneous abortion,” since “abortion” is the medical term for any interrupted pregnancy. A miscarriage, or spontaneous abortion, is the loss of a pregnancy before the fetus can survive outside the womb, usually within the first 20 weeks.

The government has no reason to need this information, and therefore should not be permitted to pass a law requiring the reporting of this information.

side note, this is from the article:
So it's perfectly fine to have sex with your child or grandchild if they're older than 15? I'm going to side with phred on this one.

you know this law makes no provision for babies lost very early in the pregnancy when many women don't even know the've been pregnant. additionally, the law requires that the baby's gender be reported which would not be possible for early pregnancies. ridiculous.

I second this opinion. I don't see why this is such a big deal. Deaths should always be reported. The only people who wouldn't want to report it are those who have something to hide.

I see your point but it is a very sensitive matter and something the woman should be allowed to keep private. I fail to see the point in 'illegal' abortions. It should also be the womans choice if she goes ahead with it or not. If she has been forced to abort her baby then she should go to the police anyway.

So....out of curiousity. Who gets to decide the legalities of when a group of cells becomes human....and therefore the mother committed manslaughter by falling down the stairs. Do we decide these cells are Human the scientific way (when they form a brain capable of creating waves that bear some resemblence to human thought)?
Or do we decide the religious way (when sperm meets egg)?
Once we decide, what sentencing guidelines would we place on a woman who has an accident, that could have been prevented. Six months in prison sound good? How about Nine months....seems fitting. She will need a good lawyer as well...to prove it was an accident, and that she did not throw herself down the stairs to Kill her child.

Fuck that.....Just dont get pregnant, Abstinence is best anyway.....isn't it?

Government should have NO ROLE in this WHAT-SO-EVER. <-- the previous statement goes for MANY things.

Again, I don't see the big need for secrecy in a society that doesn't place much value on the life of an unborn child in the first place. I repeat, what do they have to hide? I don't much care if a prison term is included in the penalty, though I seriously doubt that it would be. Towards the issue of determining humanity. Here's a simple test: is the woman pregnant? If yes, then she is carrying a human. If you can prove to me she is carrying something else, then yes, she should keep that a secret.

I Doubt very much I could prove to you that a group of cells is not a human, as this is a sometimes religious debate. But I will say it has been proven to "Me" that it takes more than a fertilized egg to create a human. And we would therefore carry a very different understanding of the "realities" in this debate.

this may have already been assumed but does anyone see this as framework to to overturn Roe v. Wade? thats the only reason i can find for this law. i know bush and co. are religious ideologs and that there are many repulicans that want this overturned. since they control so much of the government now do you think they could be aiming for this?

Ugh...that makes me sick.

What's sad is that people will probably vote, not even knowing what it does.

I fully agree with this.

Actually, when the child is a blood relative, it falls into a whole new class of criminal act, which also forbids marriage to a blood relative. That's the reason for the exception in that particular law.

As for the topic at hand... I had a miscarriage at 13 weeks. I have, to this day, not "reported" it to anyone. I include it in my medical history by simply saying that I have had two interrupted pregnancies. My miscarriage happened in my home. Sorry if this seems harsh, but I flushed the detritus from the miscarriage (bloody tissue... if there was a fetus in there, I didn't see it) down the toilet just like I do menstrual discharge.

It was nobody's business but mine, and still isn't. If I choose to share it, it's my business.

The only reason I can see behind such a law is to track women who have had interrupted pregnancies, in preparation to begin to require that women who have had abortions report those procedures as well, which as of now are protected by law as confidential.

The only way to keep things like this from happening isn't by moving away, its by fighting each and every attempt to take a liberty away. Stand up and be heard. They do these things because they can, because the majority of Americans don't take an interest in the workings of the government and don't notice the slow, steady process by which our liberties are being stripped from us.

why would a woman have to have "something to hide" to be against reporting this? i'm an adult and if i were pregnant it would be noone's business but mine and the people i chose to share it with.

and sorry, but you couldn't get someone else to make this call for you. did you read all that you have to report? maybe a husband could make the call--but not in every case. how many husbands know their wives medical history in detail? he may have a big picture, but does he know the dates of her last period? does he know how many dr visits she's had? does he know about all previous pregnancies and the history of those? i can't think of a single person besides myself, (including my ex husband) who would have all the info they want reported.

and what if the woman hasn't told anyone she's pregnant? it's not uncommon for a woman who's not trying to get pregnant to hold off telling her partner about it. so my dr doesn't know, my partner doesn't know, none of my friends and family know--but i have to share this info with the gov? thanks but no thanks.

i agree with another poster, the only benefit to this law that i can see is that it helps to establish that a miscarriage is the death of a person at any age of gestation. that correlates with getting roe v wade overturned.

while i understand that different people have different views on abortion--we are not just talking about someone who decides they don't want to have a baby. reporting a miscarriage within 12 hours is asking a lot of a woman who's suffered enough imo.

Reminiscent of 'The Handmaids Tale' by Margaret Atwood. Any woman with a funtioning womb is turned over to the government to breed for weathy infertile couples. Makes ya think...

I'm surprised that anyone could think this is a good idea. I had a friend who had a miscarriage and she was somewhat sick for a couple days. The miscarriage was a result of some other health problems. To require a woman who could potentially be ailing to put herself for such a stressful event AFTER already ungoing such emotional and physical upset is barbaric. I would probably not report it. Especially if I hadn't told anyone else. I never told anyone else when I first got pregnant until I was already a month along and then it was only my husband. Later, when I was 3 months along I told my family and friends. No one could have even guessed it let alone the government. What kind of violation of privacy could this entail if someone else were to falsely "tip" off the police. Would they try to invade you're home to investigate the violation? This isn't something you can control so well. Some women can even have a "miscarriage" and not even know. They may think it's only a large blood clot as they start a "period" and beyond that they are clueless. Granted once the fetus is farther along in the gestational period it would be more recognizable but usually by then the woman is aware of things and seeing a gyno about the pregnancy. Asking a physician to report miscarriages using only numbers instead of names is fine in my eyes. At that point the CDC can keep track of certain trends that may encourage miscarriage and help other women prevent a miscarriage. But this - it's invasive, unnecessary, and downright mean to the woman who goes through such an experience.

I can't believe one person here endorses a woman not even telling the father that she is pregnant. That's just about the height of immaturity to me. I don't see how this law has any more potential for being abused than women falsely crying rape, which happens a lot. I suppose the only people against this are people who support abortion and fear the government is trying to make a blanket ban on it. Otherwise, I ask again, why does it matter if the government keeps tabs on who lives and dies in this country, born or not? I don't buy the privacy issue at all. We give up a lot of liberties for the common good. The police can force me to give a semen sample if someone accuses me of rape. That seems pretty invasive to me, but nobody is lobbying against rape laws. Preganancy is not and never should be a hidden process. I sincerely hope those against this don't support women aborting their children without even telling the father of the pregnancy. A few responses seem to be going in that direction but maybe I'm reading too much into it.

Looks like someone realized his ignorance.............

Legislation that would have required mothers who had failed to report fetal deaths to the police within 12 hours of the delivery to face a possible misdemeanor sentence will be withdrawn, its patron said on Monday.

"I've elected to withdraw HB 1677 from consideration by the General Assembly this year. The language is just too confusing," Del. John Cosgrove, R-Chesapeake, told The Augusta Free Press.

Seems the Web had something to do with this bieng pulled from consideration. Good for us.

http://democracyforvirginia.typepad...._for_virginia/

I'm sorry, but I dont buy it. I've been clawing tooth and nail for the liberties they've been attempting to rape us of over the course of the last 3-4 years. I've been a member of the ACLU for a lot longer than that, but it's become a much bigger fight lately. We were all (or at least a great deal of us were) born into this country that is significantly better off than most other places on the planet. We have all of these rights because thousands of people fought and died for us to have them, and to ignore that and willingly give them up is quite litterally worse than death. What use is the body without the heart?

Thats the best news i've heard in weeks.

I still fail to see what "common good" women would be sacrificing for in this circumstance. I think the rest of the posts on this board outline pretty well why this law would be an invasion of privacy but i've yet to see you (or anyone else, including the writer of the law himself) provide any evidence that reporting miscarriages to the state government of Virginia would provide for the common good.

That's a big relief its withdrawn. but still, the fact that someone wanted it through makes you wonder. "The language is just too confusing"? HA!

I think politicians write crazy legislation for laughs, or at least I hope that was the case here...

On this page

The legislation's intent wasn't as ominous as it's been made out to be. It clearly was just worded poorly. Just to throw my $.02, given the intent, notification shouldn't be required till after a period of time where the child could survive outside the womb.

This would be *somewhat* more reasonable but isn't abandoning a baby already illegal? I think there is usually a very clear line between babies who were born and abandoned and those that were miscarried. And i doubt very much that mother's who have choosen to abandon there baby would then *report* the birth as a miscarriage. This law still seems hard to enforce and easily ignored by the people it targets.

I cringe at the thought of this. Why does the government need record of your miscarriage? It's not something that most women want to remember themselves, much less have documented. I don't see something like this flying in the state of California.

Option 3.

The scientific way, when sperm meets egg.

Actually, the scientific term for this is "Zygote". Which will eventually become an embryo, which will eventually become a human child.

But hey....Call it whatever you want, just use the proper term when creating a Law that will affect others.

That zygote is still of the human species.

I read about this a few days ago, and it scares me quite a bit. Never mind that a) I'm not a woman, and b) I don't live in Virginia, the fact that this law would be proposed and NOT GET DISMISSED OUT OF HAND it more than a little troublesome. Not good. Not good at all...

No.....I am sorry, scientifically it is not. It is a group of Human spawned cells, But it is still a Zygote. Just as the Zygote spawned by a mouse.....is not yet a mouse, but it may very well become one in time.

Scientifically...there isn't an answer to this dispute. There's nothing in science that shows it to be more rational to call a zygote a non-human, outside of the fact that it isn't yet viable or can't yet think. There's nothing in science that shows it to be more rational to call a zygote a human, outside of the fact that it's a biological organism with unique human DNA that continually grows as other life forms do.

"Knowing what we know about that thing inside a pregnant woman's body and how it develops, when do we call it a human being?" is a philosophical question.

That's why it's incorrect to discount option #3.