Abortion

Could Mississippi’s Personhood Amendment Criminalize Miscarriage?

A letter writer asks if anti-choice activists are sure of what all that they are outlawing with their new amendment.

GA Representative Bobby Franklin. Photo by Elissa Eubanks: The GSU Signal.

Every year, Georgia Representitive Bobby Franklin would introduce a bill to ban abortions that would force women to potentially have miscarriages investigated to ensure they weren’t actually trying to end their pregnancies.

Now, one Mississippi State University student is concerned that if the state’s new “personhood” amendment passes, it could unintentionally criminalize miscarriage, too, as well as set off a plethora of other unintended consequences.

Via the Reflector:

As Amendment 26 is written, the initiative would:

-Limit access or outlaw many commonly used forms of birth control, including pills and IUDs.

-Harm fertility research and access to fertility treatments.

-Make criminalizing miscarriages an easier task, as 26 does not distinguish between spontaneous miscarriage and murder.

-Criminalize life-saving measures for women suffering ectopic or tubal pregnancies.

-Drive up the costs of Medicaid, Medicare, health insurance and medical malpractice insurance.

-Violate patient-doctor confidentiality.

-Allow the government — not doctor and patient — to make important, private health decisions.

An abortion restriction that could have numerous unintended, unrealized additional consequences that could go even further to hurt women?  I’m sure the authors had no idea that could occur.