Utah Miscarriage Bill

In Utah, a woman allegedly asked a man to beat her up in order to bring on a miscarriage, this so appalled the Utah Senate so much so that they decided to push through a Bill that states that a woman will not be charged if she has a legal abortion but that she can be charged with murder if she “miscarries recklessly”!

This means in theory that you could be charged with murder if you fall down the stairs, drink while pregnant  or do not wear a seatbelt and are involved in a car crash and go on to lose your baby. Punishment can mean up to life in prison for an “intentional knowing, or reckless act” that leads to a miscarriage or abortion without a doctor’s supervision. All a D.A. would have to prove is that the woman behaved in a manner that is thought to cause miscarriage, even if she did not intend to lose her pregnancy.

So, if every miscarriage is a potential murder, will Utah then launch a criminal investigation every time a woman miscarries? Will there be a register that women will go on to report said miscarriages?

I myself had a miscarriage before my first daughter was born, I went through some serious psychological turmoil afterwards asking myself if there was anything that I could have done differently, was it my fault? So, under this Law, I would then have had to answer to a criminal investigation to determine whether I did anything that may have caused the miscarriage.

Some Senate Democrats have tried to have the wording on the Act amended to remove the word “reckless” from the list of criminal acts leading to miscarriage, by criminalising reckless acts, this leaves open the possibility that women face the possibility of prosecution if they suffer at the hands of domestic violence and return to their abusers, only to be beaten and lose their child.

How in this day and age is this possible?