Why Bill Was Right to Oppose Birth Certificates for Stillbirths

If Richardson wants the vote of the majority of Americans, who are pro-choice, then he needs to be consistent in his support of reproductive rights. That's why his decision on this seemingly-uncontroversial bill was particularly astute.

If it makes grieving women feel better, then why not just issue the certificates? Well, because we have to weigh the comfort some women may receive from the certificate against the rights of all women. Requiring state-issued birth certificates for stillborn fetuses is a vital part of the anti-choice movement’s strategy to overturn Roe v. Wade by slowly and systematically assigning to fetuses rights that supercede the rights of women.

In the Roe v. Wade decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a fetus is not a “person,” unlike the grown person whose body is hosting the fetus. It should make perfect sense that a woman is entitled to protection under the 14th Amendment, whereas a fertilized egg is not, and that we cannot take rights away from women simply because they have the fortune (or misfortune) of getting pregnant. Unfortunately, all that information is just blah blah blah when mainstream media focus on the heartbreak of stillbirth, quoting grieving women who want birth certificates to acknowlege their loss.

Yes, it is miserably heartbreaking to lose a child, but it’s also a misery to be forced to have a child against your will. And that’s where this whole birth-certificates-for-stillborns thing is going.

According to National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy, “…If they can convince the Supreme Court that ‘times have changed’ since Roe was decided and that a fetus should now be recognized as a "person" under the Constitution, then abortion would immediately become an act of murder in every state across the country. …And once a fetus is considered a "person" under the U.S. Constitution, no legislation, no ballot measure, no court case, no vote will be able to keep abortion legal in this country."

In the effort to overturn Roe by establishing the fetus as a person, anti-choice activists have been pushing all kinds of laws, on state and federal levels, that attempt to give rights to fetuses, while infringing on the rights of women. Gandy cites several examples:

1) The Bush administration added new regulations to the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) in 2002 that classified a fertilized egg as an "unborn child" eligible for health insurance. They said the change was needed to cover prenatal care — but it was really just "cover" for another fetal personhood initiative. (In fact, the Clinton administration had covered prenatal care under S-CHIP without regulations establishing that an embryo is a child.) The same year, Bush told the Advisory Commission on Human Research Protections (under the Department of Health and Human Services) in 2002 to consider embryos as "human subjects."

2) In 2004, Bush signed into law the so-called "Unborn Victims Of Violence Act," which amended federal criminal laws to create a second, separate offense for killing or injuring a "child in utero," thus transforming even a fertilized egg or zygote into a child — a person — under that federal law. Although the stated purpose was to protect pregnant women from violence, conservatives in Congress quickly killed a substitute that would have doubled the penalty for any crime against a pregnant woman. This law covers only crimes committed on federal land, so it has limited actual application — it's just another step in the march toward fetal personhood.

3) Prosecutors across the country are using child abuse and neglect statutes to criminally charge women for actions that potentially harm the fetus, claiming for example that pregnant women were "delivering" drugs to "minor children" through their umbilical cords.

4) In 2005 and 2006, three bills were introduced in Congress that would severely punish doctors unless they tell women seeking abortions (contrary to medical knowledge) that "your unborn child" will feel pain in "the process of being killed in an abortion," offer her anesthesia for the fetus, and get a signed statement that she received the information. This so-called "fetal pain" bill was narrowly defeated in the closing days of the 109th Congress, but is already on tap for the 110th.

“Taken together with the appointments of two anti-woman Supreme Court Justices and several anti-woman chiefs and advisors to key entities such as the Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA Advisory Panel on Women's Health,” Gandy says, “these affronts to women's rights comprise a substantial undertaking—an organized effort to supply the Supreme Court with an abundance of references for an argument that fetal personhood should be legally recognized. Every state and federal measure that calls embryos and fetuses ‘children,’ unborn or otherwise, is a resource in the right-wing's ‘Roe-Be-Gone’ reservoir, waiting to be tapped. I'll say it again: Don't be chastened by those who say ‘it's just semantics.’ Words matter in the law, and in the case of fetal personhood, they may matter a lot more than you think.”

For a complete analysis of fetal personhood, check out the writings of Joyce Allen, a Canadian pro-choice writer and publisher.
(posted by Gwyneth Doland)