Love’s Labour Lost: An act of desperation leads to a bad law

There is a saying in the law that “hard cases make bad law”.  This tragic story is one of those hard cases:  Last year in June, a 17 year old girl, seven months pregnant, was told by her boyfriend, the baby’s father, that he would leave her if she didn’t get rid of the unborn child.  So, the girl gives 21 year old Aaron Harrison $150 to beat her up and induce a miscarriage; it didn’t work – the baby survived, was born in August and, fortunately, adopted. The girl pled no contest to a second-degree felony count of criminal solicitation to commit murder, but the charges were later dropped as a judge ruled that under state law, she could not be held criminally liable.  Harrison is serving a sentence for up to 5 years for the “attempted killing of an unborn child.”

Utah’s legislative response:  Pass a bill that charges pregnant women and girls with murder for having miscarriages caused by "intentional or knowing" acts; so that if this happens again, the 17 year mother could face a prison sentence of 15 years to life. (The Text of the Bill can be accessed here.)

But no one is addressing the underlying problem  -- Sure, there is plenty of blame to go around – the pregnant minor, the baby’s father, the guy who agreed to beat her up – But there also lots of questions that need to be asked, such as “How could this have been prevented?”   Did the 17 year old or her boyfriend have sex education?  Did either of them have access to birth control?  Was the 17 year old aware that she had the right to a legal abortion?  Did her parents or the boy’s parents discuss alternatives with her?  Did ANYONE in the community discuss her options or offer her support? – Or did they figure that every seventeen year old was as mature as Ellen Page’s character in Juno and everything would be hunky dory? (They obviously haven’t watched Revolutionary Road)   As Lynn M. Paltrow, the executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, commented, how this happened is being obscured because of the sole focus on the baby; she asks “Why would a young woman get to a point of such desperation that she would invite violence against herself?”

According to the Guttmacher Institute, which advocates for sexual and reproductive health in the United States, 93 percent of all Utah counties have no abortion provider. And I would venture to guess that sex education and access to birth control is fairly limited where this happened. (Somebody, please correct me if I’m wrong)

Planned Parenthood Melissa Bird is concerned that the language of “intentional or knowing” is still problematic, leaving suspicion open to any miscarriage: “What happens to women who are in abusive relationships?" she asks. "What happens if a woman threatens to leave the abuser, falls down the stairs and loses the baby? What if the abuser beats the woman and causes a miscarriage? Could he turn her in? Who would the prosecutor believe? What happens if a drug addict who’s trying to get clean loses her baby? Will she be brought up on murder charges?” (full text accessible here)

If there is anything that approaches a consensus in the US on this topic, it is that is prevention of unwanted pregnancy is much better than abortion.  This law doesn’t consider that OR address the underlying problem – it doesn’t help women have control over their reproductive systems or help the unborn; it penalizes the mother for being desperate.

[Cross-posted on IEET’s blog]

A Critical Link: The Environment and Women's Health Conference

A Critical Link: The Environment and Women's Health Conference
In recent years there has been an increased awareness of the connections between environmental contaminants, fertility, and health -- and a growing body of evidence supporting these concerns that link reduced fertility to pregnancy loss, adverse birth outcomes, reproductive tract abnormalities, learning disabilities in children, and various cancers to environmental contaminants. It is becoming increasingly clear to those of us who work for women's health that we must begin to turn our attention to the environmental toxicants that are affecting the ability of couples to become pregnant, have healthy pregnancies, and give birth to healthy babies.

At Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, we feel a responsibility as a health care organization to help our patients and communities make the link between human health and the products we put in our bodies, and in our homes and schools.

On September 10, 2009, PPNNE is presenting A Critical Link: The Environment and Women’s Health, in Burlington, VT. This ground-breaking conference will feature a keynote address by ecologist, author, and cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber. Steingraber and other environmental health experts, will participate in a panel discussion moderated by Dave Rapaport, Seventh Generation’s senior director of corporate consciousness, and Mia Davis, national grassroots coordinator for the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards will kick off the conference and share the Planned Parenthood perspective on providing greener, healthier choices to patients. For more information go to http://www.good-chemistry.org/

How Womens' Health Will Be Affected by the Obama Presidency

[Tip of the hat to Rachel Walden over at Women's Health News Blog for alerting us to these headlines]

Buh-bye Global Gag Rule!

7 Things Obama’s Win Could Mean for Women’s Health

Condoms Trump Abstinence in Obama Global AIDS Policy (Update1)

US health policy: we've fallen but we can get up ~ Yes, we can!: Dr Susan Wood appointed co-chair of Obama's advisory committee on Women's Health.

Wanted: Women to Eat Chocolate

What woman wouldn't want to sign up for this clinical trial? From across the pond:

"Researchers in Norwich have set themselves an easy challenge: finding 150 women prepared to eat a bar of chocolate a day.

The chocolate is free, and made specially for the trial by a Belgian chocolatier. The intention is to see whether it improves the women’s health." To see the rest of the article, click here.

Yes or No to In Vitro?

The Women's Bioethics Project recently had the opportunity to work with web TV hosts and producers Whitney Keyes and Wyatt Bardouille.  They interviewed one of our book club non-fiction authors, Beth Kohl, about her personal experience with assisted reproductive technologies.  With engaging humor and wit, Whitney, Wyatt and Beth explore the reality of the ART process as well as some of the ethical implications.  Sometimes we get lost in the complexity of ethical debates and forget that these issues affect real people with real stories. Narrative matters.

 

You can watch the segment "Yes or No to In Vitro?" here.  

Women's Health Care Unsatisfactory Nationwide, National Women's Law Center Report Card Says

Women's health care in the U.S. is unsatisfactory overall, according to a report card on the state of women's health released Wednesday by the National Women's Law Center and the Oregon Health and Science University, CQ HealthBeat reports.

The report card, titled "Making the Grade on Women's Health: A National and State-by-State Report Card," measured women's health in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., by using 27 health benchmarks designated by HHS' Healthy People 2010 campaign. According to the report, the U.S. overall fails to meet 12 of the 27 benchmarks, up from nine in 2004 (Bartolf, CQ HealthBeat, 10/17). Only three of the 27 benchmarks -- women receiving regular dental care, women ages 40 and older receiving mammograms and women ages 50 and older receiving colorectal cancer screening -- were met, Michelle Berlin, an associate professor at OHSU, said.

None of the states received a "satisfactory" grade in women's health. Three states -- Massachusetts, Minnesota and Vermont -- received a grade of "satisfactory minus," a decrease from 2004, when eight states were considered "satisfactory minus." Eleven states and the district received failing grades in women's health status, compared with six states in 2004. The 11 states are: Alabama; Arkansas; Indiana; Kentucky; Louisiana; Mississippi, which ranked last; Oklahoma; South Carolina; Tennessee; Texas; and West Virginia. The remaining states received "unsatisfactory" grades, Reuters reports (Steenhuysen, Reuters, 10/17).

Benchmark Disparities
The report found that several benchmarks -- including the percentage of women receiving prenatal care, infant mortality and the percentage of uninsured women -- varied significantly by race. American Indians and Alaska Native women were twice as likely as white women to be uninsured, the report found. Among white women, 16.9% were uninsured, compared with 22.7% of black women and 37.8% of Hispanic women, according to the report. The percentage of uninsured women increased by 1.7% since 2004, according to the report (CQ HealthBeat, 10/17). Minnesota had the lowest percentage of uninsured with 9.1%, and Texas had the highest percentage at 28.1%, the report said (Reuters, 10/17).

The report found 85.7% of white women received prenatal care, compared with 70.8% of American Indians, 75.9% of blacks and 77.5% of Hispanics. According to the report, the percentage of women nationwide who received prenatal care increased by 5% since 2004 but is still unsatisfactory. The report found that white women have an infant mortality rate of 5.7 deaths for every 1,000 live births, compared with 13.5 deaths per 1,000 live births for blacks and 5.6 per 1,000 live births for Hispanics. The overall infant mortality rate has remained the same since 2004.

The percentage of obese women increased in all states and the district (CQ HealthBeat, 10/17). Hawaii had the lowest percentage of obese women at 16.7%, and Mississippi had the highest percentage at 31.5%. The percentage of women ages 40 and older who received mammograms improved in all states (Reuters, 10/17).

The number of states with parental notification policies for minors seeking abortion decreased, as did the number of states that have mandatory waiting periods for abortions, the report found. The number of states that provide public funding for abortion for low-income women has remained constant since 2001, according to the report.

Comments
"The outlook for women's health is nowhere near approaching the nation's goals for 2010" set by the Healthy People campaign, Berlin said, adding, "Failing to meet these goals undermines not only the health and well-being of women, but the well-being of our country as well." Judy Waxman, vice president for health and reproductive rights for NWLC, said, "It's nothing to cheer when only a handful of states are meeting at least half of the policy goals" (CQ HealthBeat, 10/17).

Waxman called on states to implement policies to improve women's health (Reuters, 10/17). "It is evident that our health system needs mending," Waxman said, adding, "Lawmakers must take a comprehensive, long-term approach to meeting women's health needs" (CQ HealthBeat, 10/17).

The report is available online.

Reprinted with permission from kaisernetwork.org. You can view the Kaiser Daily Reports online, search the archives, and sign up for email delivery at www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/. The Kaiser Daily Reports are published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. © 2007 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.