We Don’t Have Anything Else To Do Today. Let’s Make Miscarriage a Misdemeanor.
Quit looking smug, Virginia. You got your share of crazies, too.
If a woman in Virginia has a miscarriage without a doctor present, they must report it within 24 hours to the police or risk going to jail for a full year. At least, that’s what would have happened if a bill introduced by Virginia state Sen. Mark Obenshain (R) had become law.
So, if you’re in a Virginia and have a miscarriage without a doctor present, you have to “within 24 hours, report the fetal death, location of the remains, and identity of the mother to the local or state police or sheriff’s department of the city or county where the fetal death occurred.”
State Sen. Mark Obenshain
That’s right. Not a doctor. The police. You know – where you go to report a crime. Where they will open a file with your name on it and the condition of the fetus. And if you don’t, you face a year in jail and a $25,000 fine.
Now I’m not saying that every woman whose menstrual cycle is a week late should march herself to the sheriff’s department and say, “I think I may have had a miscarriage. I need to report it in graphic detail for the purely prurient pleasure of state Sen. Mark Obenshain.
I am not saying that you should then mail a copy of the report to Sen. Mark Obenshain, P.O. Box 555, Harrisonburg, VA 22803 with a little smiley face on the front.
By the way, Mark Obenshain is running for Virginia Attorney General. There will be a Democratic primary on June 11th to determine his Democratic opponent. I’ll post the name of the winner if you remind me and we can all send him a dollar or two.
Sweet jeebus. The nuts are running the asylum!
1Huh? You gotta be KIDDING. Let’s all get together and build a fence around us. Do you happen to have Obenshain’s email address or fax address?
2Well I’ll be damned. I was making this very suggestion on FB just now 😀
3This makes me so sad! Sad that this world is populated with freaking idiots! I think you were joking about the late periods, but why not? It would help them establish a national registry of menstruating women so they could be tracked and referenced against the nation registry of abortion getters that they’d probably like to establish so they could cross reference it to the Welfare Queen list and Cadillac owners data base.
I realize this is trashy and if you need to remove my comment, please do. Sorry, but this just chaps my _____ !
4I’d like to see a law in Virginia introduced, requiring a senator to submit legislation with a psychiatrist present, to certify whether the bill is crazy, or just the senator who introduced it.
5The government of Romania (I think) did stuff like this about two or three decades ago. The guy in charge wanted to build up his population so he made birth control illegal, made all miscarriage suspect and jailed a lot of innocent women, and of course, outlawed abortion.
Is this the future this goober wants for us? I swear, I think the re-pubic-ans are losing their minds and one hopes, losing elections because of this batshite thinking. Any woman who votes for this fool needs to have her head examined.
6The only thing to be thankful for…. no wait…. there is nothing to be thankful for here. I thought when first read this…… well…. at least they didn’t make it a felony. But crap if a misdemeanor gets you a year in jail, they may as well have.
Apparently in Virginia, being an idiot is also a requirement for holding political office.
I thought Texas had the lock on this …. but guess not.
7The women of Virginia should send this idiot all of their used sanitary products so he can check them out.
8I have a theory. I bet Mark Obenshain’s mother told him she wishes she’d miscarried him … either that or she dropped him on his pointy little head at a tender age. I think we may need to expand the parameters of the word ‘misogynist’ to include this much crazy.
And I do agree with Rick. We definitely need to have all prospective politicians submit to a drug test and psyche evaluation before they’re allowed to run for even so much as dog-catcher. Boy would THAT narrow the field!
9New Rule: Any male interested in politics must have a licensed female OB/GYN explain the facts of life to them. There will be a test. Afterwards, if you propose any ridiculous non-science based legislation, you automatically lose your job & have to spend 1 year volunteering for Planned Parenthood.
Period.
10Apparently Obershain pulled his own bill (heh, heh) after it was pointed out to him, probably by his local police chief, that this would criminalize miscarriage. He says the intent was to keep college students from throwing their babies in the trash, or something like that, citing a Virginia case of some notoriety. http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/05/20/2035411/virginia-gop-nominee-for-attorney-general-would-force-women-to-report-their-miscarriages-to-police/
11When do we get bills regulating the man parts?? You know, the man parts that make the lady parts pregnant. I (obviously mistakenly) thought that Murikkka is all about equality.
This is part of the update to the article: He explored possible amendments to address the bill’s unintended consequences, and met with representatives of both Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice in an attempt to identify a solution. Ultimately, however, he was not satisfied that any amendment could sufficiently narrow the scope of the bill to eliminate these unintended consequences, so he had the bill stricken at his own request.
Geez, do ya think he could have thought and done all of that _before_ he submitted the bill?? Sorry, I know, it’s a R characteristic to talk first and rarely think later.
12This happened in the state of Guanajuato here in Mexico … which passed one of those “life begins at conception” bills. Indigenous women (basically the poor) have ended up in the slammer for having a unreported miscarriage. My question with these kinds of bills is who is going to prosecute, and — if it is considered murder — are there the facilities to investigate every case. This is just insane.
13Waitaminute, what?! He withdrew the bill because they couldn’t work out the removal of “unintended consequences”? Now I wanna know – just what were the *intended* consequences?! Seriously, what was supposed to be the point of this travesty?
June, I think you’ve got a great idea there. I, however, am (*ahem* TMI warning) no longer able to make such a contribution to the Senator’s education. So how ’bout I do the next best thing: I’ll send him a barf bag. Used.
*What is the matter with these people*?!?!?
14Given that a large percentage of miscarriages occur without the woman even knowing she was pregnant, i think the safest bet if for all women to mail their menses to:
Sen. Mark Obenshain
P.O. Box 555
Harrisonburg, VA 22803
So that he can examine the evidence and determine if a murder had occurred.
15Ken, settle down, son. There’s bio-hazards to consider here. I think graphic descriptions would do fine.
16One of the “unintended consequences” of the trans-vaginal sonogram law passed by the current VA administration is that it has made Gov. McDonnell unelectable as President. Poor baby!
17So this is what SMALL governmnent looks like. They want the governmnent out of their lives, just not womens’ lives. My miscarriage nearly cost me my life since I began to hemorrhage afterwards. This guy would have put me in jail for not calling the police before going to the hospital. I can’t believe this is still going on in the 21st century.
18The Republicans are the party of sex sex sex anything to do with sex sex sex. What Obenshain did hits the porn target but why should he care. He will simply pull a Sanford and claim that God forgave him even before he sinned or some such cooky dough brained thing.
19These people are just insane.
20I…I…I…I…
21Some of this cr*p is worse than the birth control and abortion statutes I thought we’d wrestled to the ground forty years ago!
Really. Has some Republican secret committee found a way to resurrect Anthony Comstock?
What exactly does he think you are “notifying” the police of–an act of god? Is he requiring the police to investigate the miscarriage using their medical skills? I realize he pulled the bill but what.a. *&^% where those signs also stand in for “idiot.” I mean, speaking as a still fertile woman (as others have pointed out) you may not know you are pregnant when you miscarry, you may have flushed the evidence, and the police are really in no way capable of investigating a miscarriage anyway. What is he bucking for? Law and Order: Special Fetal Victims Unit?
22And I thought Kookinelli was a disgrace as VA’s attorney general. I would say that the GOP had to scrape the barrel to find anybody worse, but sadly I doubt they did. As in a septic tank, the big chunks float to the top.
And the VA GOP convention selected a nominee for Lt Gov who compares Planned Parenthood to the KKK and says they practice genocide on the black race. A lot of the women of any race who went to PP for an abortion did so because they couldn’t afford a child, or another child– I don’t see the GOP doing much about that.
23Kay, the “intended” consequence stemmed from a case of woman who says she suffered a late term stillbirth at home. She threw the body in the trash and it was never recovered so there was no way to find out if the baby had actually been born alive and then killed, which is what everyone suspected. The only thing she could be charged with was improper disposal or something, which is a misdemeanor I think.
Senator Dimwit was trying to make it so that in that circumstance there was a more serious charge available. Not a bad goal but very badly done, and if I may say a solution in search of a problem. I can’t imagine this is a routine occurrence in VA…
24This is well beyond any expertise I might have accumulated in my life but I think I recall reading about unattended fetal deaths, the requirement to report such deaths to the State Vital Statistics agency in Texas. Of course I hallucinate from time to time as well.
25Re-read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Hard to believe she wrote this almost 30 years ago. Fundamental Christians take over the government – and women are reduced to wombs with legs.
26Cheryl, my daughter has been trying to get me to read that book for a couple of years. Now that we have fallen into the rabbit hole, I guess i’d better.
I’d hate to be the cop who had to take these reports.
27@Cheryl, I remember The Handmaid’s Tale very well. Who knew when Miss Atwood wrote the book she was possibly foretelling the future, not writing fantasy fiction?
28So much for that keep-your-mouth-shut-lest-everyone-thinks-we-are-all-crazy directive from the GOP bigwigs.
29I still can’t understand why there isn’t a bill (cover your eyes Mamma) about the wastefulness & lack of reporting from men and their daily ‘cycle’ activities. Not monthly. Daily.
30I mean, really…it takes two to create the ingredients for a life.
When are the men in the Senate/House going to be switching their focus and begin holding THOSE wanton men accountable for the ‘lost lives’? His ‘withdrawing’ the bill goes along exactly this same train of thought. Get it? He should be held accountable. Just sayin’
Sorry for the double comment. I just found out who the Virginia GOP nominated for Lt Gov. This guy is a complete lunatic. This is just a sample of what is written about E.W. Jackson.
31http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-20/e-w-jackson-candidate-of-virginia-s-swivel-eyed-loons.html
I was curious, there was no definition of fetus in the proposed amendment. I looked up the statute and here it is:
“Fetal death” means death prior to the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of a product of human conception, regardless of the duration of pregnancy”
The medical world defines a fetus as ‘the ninth week post-conception’. The great State of Virginia defines both a zygote and a blastocyst; both pre implanted or germinal stages of the fertilized ovum as a fetus. Post implantation the embryonic stage begins, lasting until 63rd day, but Virginia calls that a fetus too.
European study using hCG assay pregnancy testing showed that 60% to 70% percent of all conceptions failed naturally, very early, so early most women wouldn’t have known they were pregnant.
The way the law is framed, interpreted literally, women would have to report late menses to the police.
32I can’t even believe this man’s stance or understand what happened to Virginia. Mississippi racist but we got used to it. Everywhere America sell their baby for business understood. But these select pockets go to the point criminalize being a woman and having a mind what the hell is going on? What the hell right have white males overwhelmingly to declare war on a woman’s body even if as in most cases it is not God but some other pathetic distinction they are championing. The state of Virginia brings nothing but shame on their own sovereignty
33I fell asleep somewhere along the way and am still trying to wrap my head around Gohmert’s plea to an investigative committee for them to make the guy on the hot seat stop “casting aspersions on his ( Gohmert’s) asparagus”. Now I’m faced with another fact I missed . . . . that Ken Starr is President of Baylor ! The Baptists have reached a new low in Waco! Virginia has dropped its bloomers and let the nuts into the state house. And just as I reached for the frail refuge of becoming an ex-pat in Mexico, I find out they’re worse than we are!
34Republicans are strongly committed to keeping government out of people’s private lives.
Fortunately for them, Republicans do not consider women to be people.
35The Women’s Revolution will begin in……..5….4….3…..
36The last time one of their jackasses in VA tried to do this, I posted on a state government board that every single woman in the state should save her used menstrual products and mail them in to the good state legislator so he could tell first hand whether or not a miscarriage had occurred since women honestly have no idea one has if it’s early enough. He must have read it because he withdrew his bill the next day.
Unfortunately, these ignorant jokers keep on breeding and there’s a new one every few years. And that particular message board is gone. I suppose women are actually going to have to do it to get this idiot to answer the clue phone.
37Me again. I stand by my porn statement. This guy is the spiritual brother to the crapsack in Cleveland who held three young women as sex slaves for 10 years.
38I swear I feel we’re going back to the Burning Times..what is going on?????
39LynnN, I think you got it right, but I would expand:
Republicans are strongly committed to keeping government out of people’s private lives.
Fortunately for them, Republicans do not consider women, blacks, or hispanics to be people. Businesses, however, they consider to be people.
40Everyone keeps telling me these idiots are in the minority.
41I’m not so sure.
Maybe we need to fence each state and protect each fence with one $25 toll entrance per state. Then we’ll know that people going in have a good reason to enter.
I am not promoting isolationism, I am just trying to cut down on cross-contamination.. That’s the only explanation I can find for their behavior.
This guy is a complete idiot. Does he know how many women have miscarriages?? This just shows that the Republicans did not learn anything from last summer and fall when the Republican candidates were making such stupid remarks. They know absolutely nothing about women.
42Actually, philosophically speaking, once you accept that personhood, or whatever, begins at conception, once those cells begin to divide, then it’s an easy leap to abortion being murder. Once you’re there it’s an even easier leap to “miscarriage equals accidental death.” Accidental deaths or deaths outside medical facilities are generally investigated by law enforcement and/or the medical examiner’s office, even if not prosecuted.
If you’re really committed to the “life begins at conception” idea, then it’s really hard to define which miscarriages should be investigated and which shouldn’t. At least without studying the biology of pregnancy a whole lot more than most Pubs are capable of. After all, if they did study it they might figure out that maybe “life begins at conception” is hard to justify on scientific grounds alone.
43Yeah, and all those men who “spill their seed” should also report it to the police as an equal crime, yes?
44I would have to say that Obershain is the bio-hazard. Hazardous to anyone who has a brain or any sense of reality. What is it with these republicans who are so obsessed with sex? And how did they come to despise women so heartily?
You could all move up North where such craziness is pretty much laughed at (exception: Michelle Bachman – we continually need to apologize for her)
45