Criminalizing miscarriage: summing up today's news

A feticide bill that criminalizes miscarriage has made it through the Utah legislature to the governor's desk awaiting passage or veto. RH Reality Check offers up background information on the bill, explaining that "the basis for the law was a recent case in which a 17-year-old girl, who was seven months pregnant, paid a man $150 to beat her in an attempt to cause a miscarriage."

The bill's language is distressingly vague, holding pregnant women accountable for feticide if they miscarry after "reckless behavior." Jezebel expands, noting that advocates fear "that women will be brought up on murder charges for drinking, failing to wear a seatbelt, or falling down the stairs." Feministing also notes the dangerous line that this bill crosses; currently, feticide laws in many states hold third parties accountable, but none hold mothers accountable for unintended miscarriages.

Feministe was right in describing the bill as a "punishment" for women, and also ponders the philosophical logic behind supporting such a bill: "[Pro-lifers assume that] a fertilized egg is a unique, individual human being, and that the death of that egg is like the death of a person. If that’s the truth, then why no activism around trying to find a cure for the close to 50 percent of fertilized eggs that naturally don’t implant, and are flushed out of the woman’s body?"

In The Stranger, Dan Savage quips, "lots of women miscarry before they even realize their [sic] pregnant... so Utah will have to pass another law, one that compels all sexually active women—actually, let's just say all women, Utah, since some sexually active women claim they're chaste—to come in for mandatory monthly pregnancy tests." Sarcastic though he may be, Savage gets at the heart of the issue: denying women their privacy and the right to make their own choices regarding their bodies and their health. -TLF