According to the Mayo Clinic, 10%-20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, which is also known as spontaneous abortion or early pregnancy loss.
For people with infertility issues or other health concerns, the rate increases. And the overall miscarriage rate is also higher than 10%-20%, because many spontaneous abortions happen before people even know they're pregnant.
Conservative MAGA lawmakers across the nation have proven themselves scientifically and medically illiterate, so perhaps it's the medical terminology for miscarriage—spontaneous abortion—that has led them to target people who suffer such a devastating loss with prosecution up to and including felony charges.
West Virginia's Raleigh County Prosecuting Attorney Tom Truman recently revealed his colleagues' plans to prosecute people who suffer a miscarriage at home after nine weeks of pregnancy if any "remains" are not immediately turned over to authorities for examination and proper burial. He says he has no plans to follow their lead and only wished to warn the people of West Virginia.
You can see local news coverage here:
Charges would be under a West Virginia law about the disposal of human remains.
Their plans fail to recognize that the majority of first trimester (0–13 weeks) spontaneous abortions happen outside of a medical facility, a 9-week fetus is only about 1.6" (4 cm) long, and experts often cannot determine the cause of an early pregnancy loss based on collected blood and tissue.
Many first trimester miscarriages occur on the toilet. A spontaneous abortion at that stage appears as heavier-than-normal menstrual bleeding that sometimes involves passed tissue that looks like blood clots to the untrained eye or may include a small fluid-filled sac.
The plan is to charge people who miscarry and dispose of their own fetal remains, such as by flushing them or burying them.
Truman made no mention if his fellow prosecutors plan to seek criminal charges against husbands, boyfriends, or other men who helped during a miscarriage or if they're only planning to target the person who suffered the miscarriage.
Truman told the press how his colleagues said they would decide to prosecute, saying:
"The kind of criminal jeopardy you face is going to depend on a lot of factors. What was your intent? What did you do?"
"How late were you in your pregnancy? Were you trying to hide something, were you just so emotionally distraught you couldn’t do anything else?"
"If you were relieved, and you had been telling people, ‘I’d rather get ran over by a bus than have this baby,’ that may play into law enforcement’s thinking, too."
While Truman claimed people wouldn't be charged for having a miscarriage, the reasons for prosecution indicate otherwise.
It also points to an attitude that anyone capable of pregnancy has a duty to carry all fetuses to a full-term birth and anything else is a moral failing on their part, worthy of scrutiny and possible prosecution.
Truman advised, despite no law requiring it, that people notify authorities of any miscarriage.
He said:
"Call your doctor. Call law enforcement, or 911, and just say, 'I miscarried. I want you to know'."
Women in Ohio and Georgia have been targeted using similar "human remains" laws. Charges were eventually dropped in Ohio. The case in Georgia is still pending as of this writing.
People were appalled at Truman's revelation of his colleagues' plans.
@mindy0739365693/X
Researchers found between 50%–70% of first-trimester miscarriages are random events caused by chromosomal abnormalities in the fertilized embryo. Other common causes are an egg that doesn't implant properly in the uterus before fertilization or an embryo with structural defects.
Expecting parents often ask what they did wrong, but according to research, in most cases the fetus would never have been viable, the body recognized this, and spontaneously aborted the pregnancy.
Local doctors and even pathologists don't have the equipment or specialized training needed to determine a root cause of every miscarriage. 50% of couples suffering from multiple miscarriages (2–3 in a row) will have "no identifiable cause for their multiple losses despite thorough evaluation."
If most people never learn what caused their fetus to spontaneously abort, how will medically untrained prosecutors decide who to target? It's a recipe for bias and bigotry to determine who is and isn't charged with a crime after a miscarriage.
Further persecuting the victim of a biological event beyond their control, due to the ignorance of legislators, is cruel and unusual punishment.
And that's unconstitutional.
