“Pro-life” is simply a philosophy in which the only life worth saving is the one that can be saved by punishing a woman.”
Utah Bill Criminalizes Miscarriage
According Lynn M. Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, what makes Utah’s proposed law unique is that it is specifically designed to be punitive toward pregnant women, not those who might assist or cause an illegal abortion or unintended miscarriage.
The bill passed by legislators amends Utah’s criminal statute to allow the state to charge a woman with criminal homicide for inducing a miscarriage or obtaining an illegal abortion. The basis for the law was a recent case in which a 17-year-old girl, who was seven months pregnant, paid a man $150 to beat her in an attempt to cause a miscarriage. Although the girl gave birth to a baby later given up for adoption, she was initially charged with attempted murder. However the charges were dropped because, at the time, under Utah state law a woman could not be prosecuted for attempting to arrange an abortion, lawful or unlawful.
The bill passed by the Utah legislature would change that. While the bill does not affect legally obtained abortions, it criminalizes any actions taken by women to induce a miscarriage or abortion outside of a doctor’s care, with penalties including up to life in prison.
(…) ”This statute and the standards chosen leave a large number of pregnant women vulnerable to arrest even though they have no intention of ending a pregnancy,” Paltrow said. (…) she points to cases like the one in Iowa as exactly the kind of situation that might arise once this law is put into place.
Paltrow says this bill puts a lie to the idea that the pro-life movement cares about women.
“For all these years the anti-choice movement has said ‘we want to outlaw abortion, not put women in jail, but what this law says is ‘no, we really want to put women in jail.’”
- original here, via sexgenderbody.
- Father, I am pregnant but I want to have abortion…
- It’s a sin! Do you know who the father is?
- You…
- In this case, we can make an exception.
Tagged as:
abortion
The Manifesto of the 343 Sluts (le manifeste des 343 salopes), is a declaration signed by 343 women admitting to having had an abortion, thereby exposing themselves to criminal prosecution. The manifesto appeared in the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur on April 5, 1971.
The text of the manifesto was written by Simone de Beauvoir. Here’s the beginning:
“One million women in France have an abortion every year.
Condemned to secrecy, they have them in dangerous conditions when this procedure, performed under medical supervision, is one of the simplest.
These women are veiled in silence.
I declare that I am one of them. I have had an abortion.
Just as we demand free access to birth control, we demand the freedom to have an abortion.”
The women above are Françoise Sagan, Simone de Beauvoir, Gisèle Halimi & Catherine Deneuve.
(via laialadaia: sexismandthecity)
