Miscarriage of justice

You say Virginia, I think tobacco. I think the Virginian, a favourite of mine as a child. I think olde world America, big stately houses, huge lawns, courteous people... somehow for me Virginia has become transplanted several hundred miles northeast and is part of the decent east coast.

I think Scarpetta, too, because I've read some of those books (I read trash -- I wouldn't dream of condemning it without actually bothering to read it) and I believe that's set there.

What I don't generally think when I hear "Virginia" is "backwards and repressive", but it looks like I need to rethink. A Republican "delegate" (which I take to be some sort of legislative assemblyperson) has proposed a bill to punish women who don't report miscarriages to the fuzz within 12 hours.

Yes, that's right. You have suffered the bitter heartbreak of losing a wanted child. You have suffered the incredible pain of your dreams shattered. Now report to the coppers or go to jail.

The delegate insists his bill is intended to prevent "trashcan babies" (where a baby is born and thrown into a dumpster because it is unwanted -- common in some states because of restrictions on access to terminations).

However, as is easily seen, this bill cannot have any such aim because it demands that "fetal deaths" are reported, not live births. The delegate has another reason for his bill.

What can it be? Do I suggest he is wanting to prevent women from having "sneaky miscarriages"?

No, not exactly that. What he is doing is keeping up the pressure, applied in many places and in many ways in the States, to make the death of a fetus an event not just for the mother, whose concern it is, but for the surrounding community, whose concern it isn't. He is saying a fetal death is important enough to us that you should be punished if you don't herald it straight away.

Well, surely a fetal death is important? Yes. It's important to the woman who suffers the miscarriage. It's important to her partner, if she has one, and her family, if she has one, and her friends, if they know about it.

What business is it of anyone else's? Why would anyone want to make it their business? Well, there is a reason.

Conservatives know that no matter how much they throw out the spiel that rights are something that God endows us with and that they are natural, mystical things that inhere in us, blah de blah, liberals will insist that they are things endowed by the societies we are part of, negotiations, agreements. Us naughty liberals will point out that the social contract involves rights as well as responsibilities etc, which conservatives hate, because rights endowed by man can be removed by man -- and more importantly iincreased by man.

It is important to conservatives that fetuses have the "right" to live. They can claim that God endows us all with that right, and they do, but they know we don't all buy it. So they also try to reinforce the notion that society recognises the rights. By so strictly insisting that one should report fetal deaths, the delegate hopes to reinforce the notion that society has a "right to know" because it protects the fetus's rights.

Thanks to
Democracy for Virginia for bringing this awful cunt to our attention.

posted by Dr Zen @ 3:06 pm