A Chinese immigrant to Indiana suffers a relationship breakup while 33 weeks pregnant. Becomes depressed and suicidal. Takes rat poison to kill herself. Gets saved in hospital. Her baby dies 3 days after caesarean section (I am unable to tell of what causes, but it is alleged to be related to the poisoning), and Indiana prosecutors charge the woman with murder/attempted feticide (yes, that is a word, even a legal term, in the USA).
There have been cases like that of Christine Taylor, who had a domestic dispute with her husband, fell down some stairs, and was subsequently arrested for (but in the end not charged with) attempted feticide.
This is Christian and pro-life numbskull fetus fetish gone crazy, out of control. There are actually laws making provisions for feticide in 36 US states. Hard to believe, really.
First, any sane person would argue that to be accused of murder, one should be able to show that the accused had intent to kill. I just don’t see how a suicidal woman, or a victim of domestic abuse, have intent to kill their fetuses. It really should stop right there. But for the pro-life fetus fetishists and the Republican Party in the US, the pregnancy host, the woman, does not count. The fetus fetish trumps all common sense, those prolifers just love the unborn, from the moment of conception. All this personhood. After they come out and grow up, not so much, mind you. But while they are still in the mother’s womb, they are holy entities, persons for sure, and beware the host fall down some stairs or suffer any illness, so the holy cargo may be damaged ! That’s surely murder and must incur the death penalty (I am not joking, it can).
There is a petition to free Bei Bei Shuai at change.org here that you may want to support.
Making pregnant women criminally liable for the outcome of their pregnancy is just utterly wrong, it is another piece in the war on women currently waged in the US by Republicans and Christians. What the people who make these laws are thinking, I don’t know, but I do know that we have to try our best to make it stop, so sanity can prevail.
The more the state is responsible for our health, education, sexuality and welfare, the more they feel they own us. If the state has a financial interest in us, they will want more control.
I agree with you that the feticide issue is ridiculous. I see two avenues (or more) to fight it
(a) convincing the state to enforce your particular view that fetus is not human (tough battle because everybody wants the state to enforce their view).
(b) limiting the state’s control in our lives (not a probable approach of change.org)
Hmmmm — I don’t see a “Follow comments by e-mail” button here. How are we to know to come back and continue the conversation?
Meanwhile… in China…
http://www.smh.com.au/world/a-forced-abortion-for-a-mother-who-failed-to-sign-a-form-20120615-20eu6.html
Yes, I saw that the other day. The one-child policy is gone, but it has been replaced with a bureaucratic nightmare by the looks of it.