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AAARRRRGGGGHHH! This assault on the bodies of women and their autonomy at the most basic level is thankfully out of the box completely now. We don’t have to wonder what the womb controllers of the fringe want to do – anything related to sex (expressions of it), sexuality (anything other than P-I-V, man-woman), fertility (popping out a quiverfull per God’s instruction) and the ability to make choices about the care of her body are clearly not the domain of American women.
In Georgia, House Republican Bobby Franklin (R-Marietta-43, bobby.franklin@house.ga.gov; here’s his official state Facebook page) has a bright idea – protect the earliest form of “life”, even the results of a miscarriage, to ensure the woman isn’t up to nefarious deeds. From HB 1,
SECTION 2.14.
Said title is further amended by revising subsection (a) of Code Section 31-10-18, relating to registration of spontaneous fetal deaths, as follows: “(a) A report of spontaneous fetal death for each spontaneous fetal death which occurs in this state shall be filed with the local registrar of the county in which the delivery occurred within 72 hours after such delivery in accordance with this Code section unless the place of fetal death is unknown, in which case a fetal death certificate shall be filed in the county in which the dead fetus was found within 72 hours after such occurrence. All induced terminations of pregnancy shall be reported in the manner prescribed in Code Section 31-10-19. Preparation and filing of reports of spontaneous fetal death shall be as follows:
(1) When a dead fetus is delivered in an institution, the person in charge of the institution or that person’s designated representative shall prepare and file the report;
(2) When a dead fetus is delivered outside an institution, the physician in attendance at or immediately after delivery shall prepare and file the report;
(3) When a spontaneous fetal death required to be reported by this Code section occurs without medical attendance at or immediately after the delivery or when inquiry is required by Article 2 of Chapter 16 of Title 45, the ‘Georgia Death Investigation Act,’ the proper investigating official shall investigate the cause of fetal death and shall prepare and file the report within 30 days; and
(4) When a spontaneous fetal death occurs in a moving conveyance and the fetus is first removed from the conveyance in this state or when a dead fetus is found in this state and the place of fetal death is unknown, the fetal death shall be reported in this state. The place where the fetus was first removed from the conveyance or the dead fetus was found shall be considered the place of fetal death.
The DailyKos diary on this topic laid out some of the situations that challenges Franklin’s stupidity, because here are situations where you can’t save the life of both fetus and mother:
* What if the woman learns that she has cancer and must terminate the pregnancy in order to get treatment? No exception for that in this bill.* What about a case where the woman is hemorrhaging, the bleeding can’t be stopped and the doctor must save her and abort the fetus? No exception for that.
* What if she has a partial miscarriage, and is bleeding heavily. Must she wait until her body naturally ejects the dead fetus, even though carrying a dead fetus can lead to septic shock? Doesn’t sound like there’s an exception for that.
* What if it’s an ectopic pregnancy? You cannot save the fetus and the mother in such a case.
* What if the woman is told she’s carrying an anecephalic fetus with only a brain stem which will be non-viable outside the womb? Must she carry that fetus full-term?
Of course Franklin doesn’t think about these matters; he and his cronies are hell-bent on controlling the woman carrying the “zygote, embryo, homunculus, and similar terms” as referred to in the bill. The boldness of GOP lawmakers to dive into these social issues right away shows the distress they have with changes in society, and their desire to reshape it by any means necessary, violating the civil rights of over half of the population.
Besides that — where is Franklin going to come up with the money to fund this new Georgia Womb Police Division?
20 Comments
what is the penalty if a woman has an ‘unacceptable’ fetal death?prison? electric chair? forced re-impregnation?
So a woman who has a miscarriage is guilty until prove innocent?We don’t know what caused either of my mother’s miscarriages. Should she get prison time because she can’t actually prove she didn’t do anything to cause them?
This (*censored*) is ridiculous!!Why do they wanna punish people for having sex so badly?!
Because they’re notgetting any.
Menses inspection???How far back do they want to go? Some women never have implantation of the fertilized ovum. Others have spontaneous miscarriages with ever realizing they were pregnant, just assumed they were a bit late this month.
Is he requiring the collection and inspection of all ‘sanitary devices’ for women and their pathologic inspection?
This is one sick clown, (sarcasm)though to be fair it would create jobs. Anyone want to apply to be a tampon/napkin collector/inspector(/sarcasm)?
Not orthodox enough…Where’s that passage about not spilling seed? Isn’t a seed an early form of life? Perhaps Rep. Franklin should mandate that all spills not directed into their proper containers be reported and properly investigated. As a man, he should do his part and not put it all the women. LOL! This stuff just can’t be made up.
His motherDid his mother ever have any miscarriages? She needs to be investigated!
Ditto for his wife.
Homunculus?I had to follow the link to see if this was really in the bill. I can’t believe it.
Anyone else see all this RWNJ claptrap about limiting abortions, defunding Planned Parenthood and basically all things that aren’t, as Pam put it, P-i-V, reminiscent of Margaret Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Tale”? The right wing want to set up a theocracy. Plain and simple. And you and I any one who believes as we do are not welcome.
They’re more backwards than I thought.Alchemy fell out of favor before our country was even founded.
Grinning IdiotAt least now we know what a grinning idiot looks like. Wonder when they’ll make male masturbation a punishable offense. After all, the Bible tells men not to “spill their seed”. That would be funny if these people didn’t have so much power.
Franklin’s NEXT billWhat will his next bill be? Mandatory rectal exams by a physician for all men suspected of being gay to see if they have been having “da butt sechs”? (And, by the way, a doctor CANNOT tell from a physical exam if one has been partaking in anal intercourse or not.)
Fertility & in vitro practionersWhat about those medical folks?
The failure rate for thawing embryos is about 50% and the implantation rate of the ‘survivors’ is about the same. Would the docs be liable under this fu*kweasel’s proposal? I mean they knowingly allowed some ‘products of conception’ to be destroyed.
How ’bout hose who have extra embryos when they’ve finished their pregnancy treatments? Are they liable under this law before or after the medical practitioners if they donate the ‘leftovers’ to another infertile couple? How ’bout the donee couple; are they liable if the gift doesn’t take?
What a perfectly vicious dilemma awaits them in the real world.
I Live in MariettaThis is the E-mail I sent him, and I blind cc’ed Pam and a few others.
Bobby,
You are a total disgrace to the people of the city I live in, Marietta, especially women here. Your HB-1 bill is nothing more then a male chauvinist control over the body of women in the state of Georgia, with no thought to any health issues they may face. I suppose your next bill will take their voting rights away and make them work in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant. Heaven help those women who have health problems during that pregnancy. In case you forgot, this is the TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY and not the 17th.
Here are some health issues you don’t seem to give a damn about:
* What if the woman learns that she has cancer and must terminate the pregnancy in order to get treatment? No exception for that in this bill.
* What about a case where the woman is hemorrhaging, the bleeding can’t be stopped and the doctor must save her and abort the fetus? No exception for that.
* What if she has a partial miscarriage, and is bleeding heavily. Must she wait until her body naturally ejects the dead fetus, even though carrying a dead fetus can lead to septic shock? Doesn’t sound like there’s an exception for that.
* What if it’s an ectopic pregnancy? You cannot save the fetus and the mother in such a case.
* What if the woman is told she’s carrying an anecephalic fetus with only a brain stem which will be non-viable outside the womb? Must she carry that fetus full-term?
You and your teabagger Repugs are drunk with power and you want to go back to the days of a white-only male controlled world of the Civil War days. Just remember, God has a way of evening things out in the end. I’ve lived long enough to see karma bite people in the tail section more times than I can count. You want to be a hateful bigot toward women and other minorities, then don’t be surprised when God cashes in your karma chips. It won’t be pretty to watch. I have my, “I told you so” line already to go.
Monica Helms
Marietta, GA
Nothing newAnother pasty old white guy snooping into woman’s personal business.
um….Let’s ban Viagra, Cialas and every other male impotance drug.Also have mandatory sperm inspections to see if they’ve spilled a seed and make adultery by a member of goverment a mandatory castration sentence.
My grandparents were Rh incompatable. it was years before Rh incompatability issues were even studied. Because of that, my grandmother had many miscarriages and still births. My parents where Rh incompatable too. But, thanks to something called ‘science’ my mom had a few shots and my sister was carried to term. (my mom is A+ and my sister has the same blood type as my dad who’s O-)
But, lets face it. Science isn’t in this mix. Its all bullshit.
This makes me angryI have endometriosis. I conceive fairly easily, according to the charts they had me make when I was 19. It just doesn’t take very well.
Imagine months of tracking your fertility, watching your temperature rise, going in to the OB-GYN, confirming the early pregnancy (because you know you have implantation issues)… and losing it. Again. (They eventually put me on Clomid, and I have 2 children, 19 months apart.)
Now imagine having to go through this asshat’s process on top of that? I was already not even lifting anything heavier than 10 pounds, was on all high-risk pregnancy restrictions… I mean, damn it all!
No woman, no matter what her circumstance, should have to answer to anybody about what she does about her fertility, childbearing, abortions, contraception, etc. Hell, the state should cover all of it. But if this asshole won’t listen to anything else, maybe he’d listen to something like this?
If she has an accident, will it be foetal manslaughter?These laws are sickness.
NoI doubt it. Not without auditing all your precautions.
I’m sorry.
Anencephalic fetus
That’s the scenario this horrible L&O episode is using and in which the euthanasia of a brainless baby is treated like murder by everyone, even the prosecutors internally.
This would require investigating most pregnancies
Bolding added