It often starts with suspicion: Why didn’t she call for an ambulance when the bleeding started? What if she didn’t want the baby? Maybe she took something — or inquired about abortion pills?
How a person handles a pregnancy loss — and where it occurs — can mean the difference between a private medical issue and a criminal charge for abuse of a corpse, child neglect or even murder.
States across the country have been using a series of laws and court rulings in the past decade to criminalize how women react to pregnancy loss. Legal experts say the fear and suspicion following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that allowed states to ban abortion may be making things worse.
Nationally, about 20% of pregnancies end in a loss, which includes miscarriage or spontaneous abortion, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirth or fetal death, according to federal data. Only a small number are investigated as crimes. But advocates say the growing number of laws in some states place people’s actions following pregnancy loss under greater scrutiny from law enforcement.
Women in South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, Oklahoma and several other states have faced criminal charges after a miscarriage or stillbirth for failing to seek immediate medical treatment, not pursuing prenatal care or disposing of the fetal remains in a way that law enforcement or prosecutors considered improper.
A fetus found in a bathroom stall on an Oklahoma college campus, another in a New York City restaurant restroom, two fetuses found on a Baltimore bus — all resulted in criminal investigations by police in recent months.
Many states have laws on the handling of fetal remains following a miscarriage or stillbirth. Most are health codes for hospitals or medical providers — not criminal statutes. The rules vary on exactly what should be done, and at what gestational age the requirements begin.
Until this year, New York required a burial license for any fetal remains past 20 weeks, but offered no guidance for what to do when a miscarriage happened earlier in a pregnancy. Oklahoma and Arkansas now issue fetal death certificates for pregnancy loss as early as 12 weeks. And confusion about the legal requirements and the science behind stillbirth hasn’t stopped states from using these laws — and medical examiner’s offices — to launch criminal prosecutions.
“These are cases based on feelings, not facts,” said Dara Gell, senior staff attorney for Pregnancy Justice, a nonprofit that advocates for the civil rights of pregnant people. “Dobbs has given the green light to investigate every fetal demise.”
You can read the full article at Yahoo! News.