Mad dog Republican candidate for Virginia’s top lawyer job, Mark Obenshain, is yet another emotionally damaged misogynist with untreated girl issues, as he recently introduced legislation requiring women to report all miscarriages to law enforcement within 24 hours or face prosecution and up to one year in jail. Here’s the actual text of his legislation: “When a fetal death occurs without medical attendance upon the mother at or after the delivery or abortion, the mother or someone acting on her behalf shall, 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. No one shall remove, destroy, or otherwise dispose of any remains without the express authorization of law-enforcement officials or the medical examiner. Any person violating the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.”
Criminalizing miscarriage. What a great idea! Heartless bastards like Obenshain want to turn American into another El Salvador, with one of the toughest anti-abortion laws in the world, where women who suffer miscarriages or stillbirths are sometimes suspected of inducing an abortion – and can even be jailed for murder. Glenda Xiomara Cruz was crippled by abdominal pain and heavy bleeding in the early hours of 30 October 2012. The 19-year-old from Puerto El Triunfo, eastern El Salvador, went to the nearest public hospital where doctors said she had lost her baby. It was the first she knew about the pregnancy as her menstrual cycle was unbroken, her weight practically unchanged, and a pregnancy test in May 2012 had been negative. Four days later she was charged with aggravated murder–intentionally murdering the 38-to-42 week fetus–at a court hearing she was too sick to attend. The hospital had reported her to the police for a suspected abortion. After two emergency operations and three weeks in the hospital she was moved to Ilopango women’s prison on the outskirts of the capital San Salvador. Then last month she was sentenced to 10 years in jail, the judge ruling that she should have saved the baby’s life. We need wake up in America to dangers of the lunatic reactionary right multiplying like viruses in legislatures and courts throughout the land.