Personhood Amendment Defeated in Mississippi

[Inthemiddle]

On what planet could a miscarriage possibly be interpreted as murder? How? it makes no sense whatsoever unless you have some completely different interpretation of what a miscarriage is.

On a planet where a zygote is considered a human being.

If a woman knows she is pregnant, but doesn't follow her doctor's orders, which leads to a miscarriage, and where the zygote is given the legal distinction of a human being, what other result can there be? At best, she's guilty of criminally negligent homicide.

From the moment I heard about this measure I was against it. Not because I have an issue with abortion being regulated and restricted. But because this measure was so extreme that it would yield extreme results in a very negative way.

 

[Inthemiddle]

All it takes is a single prosecutor (and a reasonably sympathetic venue) intent on taking a political stand against abortion (according to dictionary.com, not all definitions of "miscarriage" exclude deliberate abortions) and a single particularly unsympathetic defendant. In such a scenario, there would be no requirement that the prosecution withstand appeal, it could be a political prosecution designed entirely for propaganda effect.

And what some people don't understand is that this is one of the main dangers of this measure, had it passed. It would, potentially, leave the government to determine the merits of each and every miscarriage. Each and every woman who miscarried would, potentially, be subject to the full investagatory powers of the state, so that the state could decide whether her actions during a pregnancy which she might not even have known existed, were negligent or not. The state would decide if you were right or wrong for eating a certain way. The state would decide if you were right or wrong to have taken your birth control pill. The state would suddenly have unprecedented power to judge the merits of a great many mundane aspects of a person's day to day life. I cannot support any measure that grants the government such unfettered power.

 

[pgm]

Some of the hyperbole in this thread is ridiculous (Republicans being pro-child abuse--the fuck?). Anyway...

On what planet could a miscarriage possibly be interpreted as murder? How? it makes no sense whatsoever unless you have some completely different interpretation of what a miscarriage is.

My guess is some miscarriages could have been abortions. Either it would be done by a doctor and then called a miscarriage or woman would try to perform home abortions. There are many legal products that have potential to cause miscarriages. Pennyroyal tea is an abortifacient that comes to mind (because of the Nirvana song). Nutmeg is also a (mildly poisonous) abortifacient. If a woman gave herself a home abortion, it would be murder, so any suspicious miscarriage would certainly be grounds for an investigation.