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Monday, February 22, 2010

If you are a pregnant woman in Utah, you are no longer a human being
Posted by Jill | 9:14 PM
Nope. If you become pregnant in the state of Utah, you are no longer a human being; you are simply a vessel for a fetus. If you have a miscarriage, the onus will be on you to prove that you didn't act in a "reckless" way:

The Utah Senate has joined the House in allowing homicide charges against expectant mothers who arrange illegal abortions.

The bill responds to a case in which a Vernal woman allegedly paid a man $150 to beat her and cause miscarriage but could not be charged. The Senate on Thursday approved HB12 on a vote of 24-4, criminalizing a woman's "intentional, knowing, or reckless act" leading to a pregnancy's illegal termination. It specifies that a woman cannot be prosecuted for arranging a legal abortion.

The measure now goes to Gov. Gary Herbert for final action.

Some Senate Democrats attempted a last-minute amendment to remove the word "reckless" from the list of criminal acts leading to miscarriage. They argued that criminalizing reckless acts leaves open the possibility of prosecutions against domestic violence victims who return to their abusers only to be beaten and lose the child.

"It's part of the cycle of domestic violence," said Sen. Luz Robles, D-Salt Lake City.

"I hope none of you ever have to face that situation," she said after realizing the majority would pass the bill as is, "or have a daughter facing that situation, or a granddaughter."

But the bill's sponsor, Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, said the bill doesn't target victims at all -- only those who arrange to terminate their pregnancies illegally.

"I know it's well-intentioned," Dayton said of the attempt to lift "reckless acts" from the bill, "but I don't think we want to go down the road of carefully defining the behavior of a woman."


Except that's exactly what this bill does. It gives the state the power to decide, on a case-by-case basis, what constitutes "reckless behavior". It completely removes a pregnant woman's autonomy over her own body, deletes her humanity and turns her into an incubator. I wonder what this law would have done with someone who gets on an airplane after her water breaks, flies 4 hours, gets on another plane and flies more hours, then drives more hours and hours to get to a hospital. Would that then be reckless behavior then, Father?

If you still think the fetophiles are just about Teh BAYBEEEZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, think about how this legislation turns pregnant women into automatons and presumes that they are criminals. Then see if you still believe this is about anything other than hatred of women.

And stay the hell out of Utah if you want to be regarded as human.

(via)

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3 Comments:
Anonymous Patricia said...
What do you expect? It's Utah. And Salt Lake City is called "Happy ValleY" because more than 80 percent of Mormon housewives take prozac.
2/22/10, 10:07 PM  
Blogger D. said...
I'd stay out of Utah in any event. But thanks for the heads-up.

*shudder*
2/22/10, 11:10 PM  
Anonymous AlphaHuskyAlpha said...
I've had 3 miscarriages. I also have a complicated medical problem, but while pregnant have been harassed about taking medications that help me stay alive (beta blockers). One of my miscarriages was directly caused by a Thyroid Storm, which was directly caused by a pharmacy not informing me my thyroid medication was unavailable, causing me to go completely without medication for 3-5 days, and then forcing my doctor to put me on a medication I can't take- hence the extreme surge in hormones. They then, without notifying me, put me back on my old medication and at that point, I was unaware that the one I was on in the interim was a longer acting one so taking my usual dose of thyroid medication was contraindicated. Sure, it was the first trimester and I was unaware I was pregnant pretty much until the day before I miscarried. But is it going to go this far? That I have to go off of even life-saving medications just to be pregnant, which ummm- correct me if I'm wrong, but if I die, won't the fetus? That if someone else screws up another life-saving medication for me, that I could risk a visit by the police?

There has been nothing like pregnancy to make me feel like a person completely stripped of rights. When you have to visit a doctor who has no clue about your medical condition, who just at whim can take you off of medications because of the "risk to the fetus," even if the risk of going off of them risks the death of both fetus and mother, what the HELL happens to your civil rights? I now see the specialist who treated me years ago in another state, and who happened to move to this state recently. Any questions about medications are to go to him. I can't fight and end up feeling that angry and depressed again. And yes, I'm pregnant again. God forbid anything should happen. Some would, I guess, put me away even though obviously, at pregnancy 5, I'm not hoping to not be pregnant!

Un-frickin'-believable.
2/24/10, 5:11 PM  
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