Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
On the National Level
In late January, I wrote a post titled Rape Redefined and Brought to You by the US House of Representatives in which I 
talked about members of Congress—mostly Republicans—who were attempting to “redefine” what the only REAL kind of rape is—that would be “forcible rape.” (I wasn’t aware there was any other kind of rape.) These Congressmen were proposing legislation that would no longer consider the following types of sexual assault as rape: The rapes of women with limited mental capacity and rapes in which women were drugged or given excessive amounts of alcohol.
Last week, Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw) wrote a post titled The Right’s War on Women in which he discussed legislation proposed by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Indiana) that would eliminate the entire budget for Title X. Lawrence wrote: “Rep. Pence and his fellow Republicans are trying to defund Planned Parenthood because it receives millions from Title X funds to assist women in their family planning and health matters. In order to try to end abortions without testing the strength of Roe v. Wade in the courts, the sponsors and backers of this bill don’t care if low-income women suffer by not getting the health care that they so desperately need. Many of these same legislators also backed the repeal of the Affordable Health Care act which would also assist low-income women get affordable health care.”
And Now from the State of Georgia
Just yesterday, I read about State Rep. Bobby Franklin of Georgia who is introducing legislation in his state that would require proof that a miscarriage—aka a spontaneous abortion—was the result of natural causes. If this legislation passes, there would have to be proof that a woman’s miscarriage was the result of natural causes. If a woman can’t prove that—she might face felony charges!
From a piece in Daily Kos: “Franklin wants to create a Uterus Police to investigate miscarriages, and requires that any time a miscarriage occurs, whether in a hospital or without medical assistance, it must be reported and a fetal death certificate issued. If the cause of death is unknown, it must be investigated. If the woman can’t tell how it happened, then those Uterus Police can ask family members and friends how it happened. Hospitals are required to keep records of anyone who has a spontaneous abortion and report it. Yup, we’ve been waiting for someone to suggest this–and Franklin has.”
Here’s the link to Franklin’s bill:
http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/en-US/display.aspx?Legislation=31965
There are millions and millions of American women who suffer/have suffered miscarriages through no fault of their own. Suffering a miscarriage can be an emotionally wrenching experience for a woman. Imagine losing a much wanted pregnancy–and then having to prove the miscarriage was the result of natural causes. How does a woman do that, Rep. Franklin? Can you explain to the women of Georgia how they should go about gathering evidence to prove that they haven’t committed a felony when they have a miscarriage?
By the way, Rep. Franklin also introduced a bill to change Georgia’s criminal codes so that victims of rape, stalking, and family violence could only be referred to as “accusers” until defendants have been convicted.
FYI
Here are some statistics on miscarriage for you:
From WebMed
Frequency of Miscarriages in the United States
The overall miscarriage rate is reported as 15-20%, which means 15-20% of recognized pregnancies result in miscarriage. The frequency of spontaneous miscarriage increases further with maternal age. With the development of highly sensitive assays for hCG levels, pregnancies can be detected prior to the expected next period. When these highly sensitive hCG assays are used early, the magnitude of pregnancy loss significantly increases to about 60-70%. Late implantation by the conceptus beyond the usual 8-10 days after ovulation also has an increased risk of miscarriage.
About 80% of miscarriages occur within the first trimester. The frequency of miscarriage decreases with increasing gestational age. Recurrent miscarriage, defined as 2-3 pregnancy losses, affects about 1% of all couples.
From American Pregnancy Association
Miscarriage is the most common type of pregnancy loss, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). Studies reveal that anywhere from 10-25% of all clinically recognized pregnancies will end in miscarriage. Chemical pregnancies may account for 50-75% of all miscarriages. This occurs when a pregnancy is lost shortly after implantation, resulting in bleeding that occurs around the time of her expected period. The woman may not realize that she conceived when she experiences a chemical pregnancy.
Sources
Washington Monthly (Political Animal)
Woosty is a cat:
“5. Maybe the father was someone with attitudes and behaviors like Tooties and if she keeps the pregnancy she will be stuck with a Tootie….it’s not like a womans rights are supported and enforced despite whether she is pregnant or not…”
That comment strokes both ways, I am sure a good number of people would abort liberal embryos if they could figure out the gene for that particular form of imbecility.
Stamford Liberal,
Some people only perceive things as black or white. They can’t see shades of gray.
They think it unspeakable for a woman who was raped to take a “morning-after” pill so as not to become pregnant.
They’d force a twelve-year old rape victim/victim of incest to carry a pregnancy to term.
If you’re a woman with an ectopic pregnancy and need some type of medical treatment–they’d suggest you forget about it.
I’m pro-choice. I’m not pro-abortion. Some people don’t see a distinction. Some people don’t consider the exceptional circumstances some girls/women find themselves in through no fault of their own. Some poeple don’t have any empathy for those girls/women.
Although statistics can vary slightly from one source to the next, here is a general account (based primarily on information provided by the March of Dimes) of the frequency of miscarriages in the United States:
There are about 4.4 million confirmed pregnancies in the U.S. every year.
900,000 to 1 million of those end in pregnancy losses EVERY year.
More than 500,000 pregnancies each year end in miscarriage (occurring during the first 20 weeks).
Approximately 26,000 end in stillbirth (considered stillbirth after 20 weeks)
Approximately 19,000 end in infant death during the first month.
Approximately 39,000 end in infant death during the first year.
Approximately 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage; some estimates are as high as 1 in 3. If you include loss that occurs before a positive pregnancy test, some estimate that 40% of all conceptions result in loss.
Approximately 75% of all miscarriages occur in the first trimester.
An estimated 80% of all miscarriages are single miscarriages. The vast majority of women suffering one miscarriage can expect to have a normal pregnancy next time.
Tootie:
you are one morally absolute person.
Taliban Tootie & Pangea:
If you don’t like abortion, don’t have an abortion. It’s that simple.
As far as miscarriage’s go, I always understood from the rabid religious types that miscarriage’s are gods will. Since the instances of miscarriages far outnumber the instances of abortion, I’d say your god is the King of Abortions.
Funny how science doesn’t enter your arguments regarding abortions, particularly when it comes to ending a pregnancy to save the life of the mother. Yet, science is a very convenient tool when it comes to infertility. To wit, the newly pregnant parent’s proclaim it a “miracle,” and “god’s will.”
Thy name is hypocrite.
“Answer, in your own words if you can, why does a woman cry after a miscarriage? “~Tootie
=======================================
1.She cries because when a pregnancy is over there is a rapid denouement of hormones. [Pregnancy involves a massive increase in hormones to sustain it… well, as a woman, you know…]
2.She may not done crying from the fact of being pregnant in the first place….do rapists and coercers think it is a gift?
3. It is a loss. The very state of pregnancy is a loss in a womans life for the duration of that pregnancy and any changes that are incurred on that womans’ life(and that mans if he is decent and still in the picture..).if it was not chosen or was forced. Some people plan for and welcome the changes a pregnancy brings…this leads to less conflict and happier and probably healthier children and more stable families…so I do hope the party of ‘family values’ is capable of listening.
4. Pregnancy makes a woman extremely vulnerable so maybe she is scared…maybe the abortion will keep her safe in her circumstance…maybe she is crying because she is saddled with a shitty circumstance and abortion is necessary to keep her safe…
5. Maybe the father was someone with attitudes and behaviors like Tooties and if she keeps the pregnancy she will be stuck with a Tootie….it’s not like a womans rights are supported and enforced despite whether she is pregnant or not…
Elaine M. 1, February 19, 2011 at 9:24 pm
“Tootie,
Those women and I didn’t avoid the question. We understand why women are sad and cry when they suffer a miscarriage. We assumed most people would. Evidently, you don’t understand. I would assume that people like Rep. Franklin suffer from the same lack of empathy.”
Those women are avoiding the question and any reasonable person reading this blog knows it.
There is one reason why a miscarriage is sad and it is the same reason why an abortion is sad: a life is lost. One through death and the other by killing or murder.
If you advocate abortion, it is likely that you know that what I say is true and cannot admit it because you would have to face who you really are. If so, it is probably too horrifying for you to contemplate or deal with. But there is a way out: Jesus Christ.
You can be forgiven for lending a hand to abortion and he can heal your heart and soul and help you live with what you have advocated or done.
Blouise 1, February 19, 2011 at 11:50 pm
TootieBy,
” I’m just playing with you all.” … Yeah … and look at the subject you decided to play with … miscarriages … ain’t you just a barrel of laughs.'”
My response:
Blouise, why is miscarriage so somber a topic that I should not play?
Mike Spindell
You write:
Mike Spindell 1, February 20, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Mike says:
You have proven your lack of empathy by everything you’ve written here, including your dislike of Government providing social services.
My response: I contend, and it is a fact, that the FEDERAL government has NO authorization to provide social services. What you are whining a sniveling about is that you don’t like the Constitution and expect ME to usurp it along with you. You act like providing social services something that doesn’t occur at the end of a gun. Naturally.
Mike says:
As an anti-abortionist you profess to care so much for the fetus, but don’t think that society has any responsibility for that fetus after its’ birth. Empathy? You? B.S.!
My response: I took care of my offspring. I expect everyone to take care of their own offspring. Doing unto others, in this case, as I am doing and expecting of myself. I belong to a religious organization that helps the disadvantaged, including the children of an orphanage. It has done this for decades. I’m not saying you are lying about me in this regard. You are just evil and cannot help the vile things you say.
“Just where do you all get that “50 million” figure that you bandy around so much. I think it overstates your case dramatically and is typical of the stuff those who you lionize pull out of their asses. Lying is a particular skill of those you slavishly follow. By the way I’m not calling you a liar, you are merely a dupe.”
My response: I’m going by estimates from the last time I looked at the numbers. For example, this link:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0904509.html
It says in the year 2000 that there had been 39 million abortions since 1973. It is now 11 years later. And since there are about one million abortions per year I just figured the number is probably very close to 49 million. I rounded up. If you wish, you can chide me for not saying “about” 50 million” lives snuffed out by self-righteous, blood-thirsty, pigs who accuse me of having no empathy.
Look. I realize that Democrats and liberals are too stupid to know how this sex stuff works and so they are surprised that sex often produces another human being. At least the dumb southern hick knows what happens after sex even if they are bare-footed thereafter and subject to ridicule from you.
And I realize that Democrats and liberals are really so utterly disgusting that they feel compelled to rid themselves of the product of their coupling. I get all that. I really do. I get it because I’m empathic. I also sympathize with liberal men. They don’t want to be connected with such horrible disgusting women and have to deal with her through their child. It is understandable. I’m sympathetic. And the same goes for the women. What other choice do they have? I mean: YUCK!
I sympathize with both of them. But I sympathize with the innocent babe more.
I’m thinking by the standards of the left, your mom made the wrong choice.
Pangea Maszi,
Before you bandy the words fascist and NAZI about you should understand their history and meaning.
“Why should those who feel no moral obligation to the rights of an innocent child, be deemed to have any rights at all.”
Why should your choices in morality – a religiously based construct as opposed to the logical constructs of ethics – be allowed to determine who does and doesn’t have rights?
Oh yeah!
It doesn’t!
1st Amendment – Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
So unless you’ve got a better argument than “I think it’s immoral”? You lose. It’s not your right to pick and choose the ethics and morals by which other people choose to live their lives. We have a secular government specifically to keep that kind of tyrannies at bay. If you’re against abortion? Don’t have one. End of story.
I smell a worn out tootie…..or a different tragedy by MFM….
The only valid issue brought up either is equal treatment for a false claim….just as well as a Prosecutor should suffer sever sanction for going forward on a case when there is no doubt that the Defendant/Accused is innocent….. I am personally aware of 4 cases where even the Detective cautioned the Prosecutor of the possible innocence of them….in one case the Chief Detective was told to shut up and they should not forget who they work for…. In this one the Cop went to the Attorney General, Attorney Board and the Defense Attorney with the evidence that had been cut out of the Defense report….. the only thing that the Prosecutor lost was his appointment with the elected official….in that case it was wrong, wrong, wrong…..
OS,
Well said!
So you cant spell right?
Pangea Maszi: Godwin’s Law says the first one to invoke a Nazi reference in an argument loses. You lose.
Elaine,
That is one scary video of the esteemed State Rep. from Georgia! Holy cow!
Pangea,
It might surprise you but your mixing of Nazi’s and the term liberal are not accurat, but I bet you know that. Rep. Franklin is not being honest with his constituents because he is declaring that women are second class citizens. For one who would seem to be a conservative, your small government motto is quashed by this Representative’s desire to have an entire investigative force designed to make sure women are really having miscarriages. Not to mention the conservatives claim for personal freedom is also extinguished by this State Rep.and his reckless legislation. I don’t think Jesus would consider that honesty.
It is funny how up in arms you fundamentalist Liberal Nazis get when it comes to your own pathetic views.
You pass your bigoted judgments upon a multitude of people, all because they do not agree with your views.
Not all that you choose to denounce consider themselves as right or left, Republican or Democrat, Liberal or Conservative, but yet that is the bigoted standard that you choose to measure the rights and wrongs of an entire nation.
The clear majority of Americans see themselves as individuals, with the only exceptions being the fundamentalist.
Not all who identify with the so called liberal agenda maintain their fundamentalist’s Nazis ideology, nor do all who identify with the so called conservative agenda maintain their fundamentalist’s Fascist ideology.
Those of us born with a moral conscious cannot rationalize how anyone could seek to justify the cold blooded butchering of innocent babies as an act deserving of any degree of compassion. If they deserve anything, it would be the compassion of having them institutionalized to get the help they surely need for their mental disease, less they be held accountable as the evil sociopaths that they are.
Fundamentalists always appear to be whining and sniveling about having to take responsibility for their own incompetent actions? They want to throw their childish tantrums to get their way, even if that way involves the cold blooded murder of an innocent being.
This authors arrogance in addressing this issue as though she speaks for all women, says more about her self-centered nature than all the vile words that spew from her demented mind.
Not all women in America see the world as something that must revolve around them, and especially not from this authors warped perception of life.
Why should someone be deemed guilty before they are convicted of an act? Because some mentally @ morally deficient females or males, such as this author says that they are? The last time I checked we are not immune from the affliction of self-servient lying.
Why should a man be justly condemned to life in prison for such a heinous act as Rape, while a woman who falsely accuses a man does not face an equal punishment?
Why should we receive favorable treatment under the law, when we demand equality in every respect that serves our wants and needs?
How many wrong choices do we get to make, before we are held lawfully accountable for those choices, especially when that choice requires the death of a child as a remedy?
Why should we be trusted to make the right choice, when it was our failure to make the right choice that requires such a choice to again be made?
Why do we need laws and judges to end a marriage, but not to end a life?
Why should we believe anything this Congresswoman says, after all she has maintained her deceptive silence until now.
WHY did she feel the need to deceive her constituents? She is not answerable to any voters but those in her district, so does she think so little of them as to lie to them in this regard. What other forms of deception has she perpetrated against her constituents?
How dare she stand as the hypocrite that she is, and try to dump the issue of jobs on these newly elected officials, when they did nothing to remedy the problem themselves? Her record is one of a person not worthy of any trust.
Only fundamentalist Liberal Nazis or Conservative Fascists would deem the exposure of ones lies and deceptions to be an act of courage, rather than an unethical act of deceit.
How is it that you denounce this gentleman from Georgia for speaking honestly, and exalt a Deceptive Liar to the level of a courageous hero? Are you saying that it is OK for a woman to be such a despicable excuse for a human being, but not a man who speaks honestly, simply because it might not be a truth we wish to hear?
At least he has been honest with his constituents, something this excuse of a representative can never claim.
In choosing to condemn tens of millions of Americans by the acts of the few, you expose yourself to be nothing more than the Bigot that you are, for it is upon the foundation of mass judgments that all forms of Bigotry must be erected, and the justifiable grounds given for all of its genocides.
While abortion has served as the bigots tool of choice to perpetrate their genocides upon the poor and disenfranchised minorities in modern history.
In most nations of Africa, women who speak as you speak would be put to death for expressing such unnatural views toward human life.
If abortion were about the woman’s body it would be understandable, but it is not the woman’s body that is being ripped apart by these butchers.
Why should those who feel no moral obligation to the rights of an innocent child, be deemed to have any rights at all.
AY,
Stooge works, but the comparison would indeed be offensive to those three.
Mike S.,
I think stooge would be a better choice of words for tootie….but I would not want Larry, Moe, Curley or Shemp to be offended to be placed in the same sentence….
“I find it amusing that the person here opposed to intentional “miscarriages” (abortion) is the person here condemned for a lack of empathy. Okay. Amusing is an understatement. It is insane.”
“I would consider anyone insane who believes snuffing out the lives of 50 million unborn humans is a good thing that cannot be admitted to publicly.”
Tootie,
You have proven your lack of empathy by everything you’ve written here, including your dislike of Government providing social services. As an anti-abortionist you profess to care so much for the fetus, but don’t think that society has any responsibility for that fetus after its’ birth. Empathy? You? B.S.!
Just where do you all get that “50 million” figure that you bandy around so much. I think it overstates your case dramatically and is typical of the stuff those who you lionize pull out of their asses. Lying is a particular skill of those you slavishly follow. By the way I’m not calling you a liar, you are merely a dupe.