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Friday, first week of the new legislative term, federal and state, and it's already a doozy:

Virginia, former homeland of the Confederacy, is the state to watch for bills that abridge or infringe on the rights of people who aren't male or heterosexual. What happens there is likely to be mirrored elsewhere across the South and across the rest of the Red States -- that portion of the West that was settled by emigrants from the Old South after the Civil War. Remember the law that was passed last year that removed from same-sex couples living together the right to make wills leaving their property to each other, or to write health directives (living wills) including one another? This time the 'underclass' involved is actually the majority of the population -- women.

Virginia Delegate John Cosgrove (who ran unopposed to retain his seat in the last election) has submitted House Bill 1677 to the Virginia General Assembly I'm going to quote it directly, rather than even attempt to paraphrase the relevant section:

When a fetal death occurs without medical attendance upon the mother woman at or after the delivery or abortion or when inquiry or investigation by a medical examiner is required, the medical examiner shall investigate the cause of fetal death and shall complete and sign the medical certification portion of the fetal death report within twenty-four 24 hours after being notified of a fetal death.

When a fetal death occurs without medical attendance, it shall be the woman's responsibility to report the death to the law-enforcement agency in the jurisdiction of which the delivery occurs within 12 hours after the delivery. A violation of this section shall be punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor. 

Daily Kos has a great deal more information, including the history of reporting deaths of fetuses and newborns in Virginia, and what's required to be reported now. Please read it. If a woman has an abortion, the fetal death is reported with a control number instead of her name. This bill, however, would require that women's names and a great deal of intrusive information be attached to the report. Much of it looks to me, in fact, like the same kind of information owners used to keep to track the fertility of their female slaves in the Confederacy. Yes, I'm saying that. This bill treats women as property: property has no right to privacy, no right to compassion in hard times, and no right to say 'it's none of your business.'

From Kos:

Delegate Cosgrove's bill is an outrageous attack on the privacy of Virginia women.  Consider this - there is no law mandating that a woman must report a pregnancy to the Commonwealth, or even seek medical treatment for one.  But this bill proposes that a woman report a LOSS of  a pregnancy to the Commonwealth, whatever the gestational age of the embryo/fetus.

Furthermore, this bill means that a woman who experiences a spontaneous loss of pregnancy will have her privacy violated significantly more than if she had chosen an abortion.  Though Virginia requires that induced terminations of pregnancy be reported, those reporting forms require only a "patient number" and information on the procedure.  The "report of fetal death" asks for the woman's full name, her history of prenatal care, her marital status, her education history, her previous deliveries (if any), and a number of other very intrusive data items.

If the miscarriage occurred under a physician's care, all of this information would be provided by the physician out of the patient's medical records.  Physicians and/or funeral directors are given 24 hours to file this report.  Delegate Cosgrove's bill gives women who experience miscarriage without a doctor only 12 hours to report, adding insult to injury....

Returning to our original scenario, let's imagine that this bill becomes law.  Will the average woman in Virginia who experiences spontaneous loss of pregnancy at home know that she is risking a year in jail if she doesn't report it?  (The practical considerations for publicizing such a law are enormous - a Class 1 misdemeanor is a serious crime in Virginia - will the health department create TV ads to inform women of this new law?) 

But let's assume, against all probability, that you are aware that there is a law requiring you to report it.

At what point during your first 12 hours of grief at the loss of this pregnancy do you make time to call the cops to report it?   Let's say you finally pull yourself together after your partner and best friend arrive to comfort you.  You pick up the phone at midnight and call your local police non-emergency number.  What do you say?  "Hello?  Um.  I'd like to report that I just had a miscarriage?"

What then?  Does the officer on the other end of the phone have a Commonwealth of Virginia Report of Fetal Death form right in front of him or her?  Does a squad car with flashing lights arrive at your house to investigate?  Is the officer who responds trained to handle your case compassionately and kindly?  ...

I know this is quite ghastly for me to suggest, but these are the practical considerations that occur to me as a woman when I think about the actual implementation of such a bill.  Delegate Cosgrove's bill does not change the data elements required when a woman reports a fetal death herself, so the police officer  in charge of taking the report would have to ask these questions.  I assume that the officer would be understanding if a woman says "I have no idea" for some of the questions, but the ordeal of having to even consider answering some of these - such as guessing the sex of the "products of conception" is nothing short of barbaric. 

Of course I'm assuming that this would all happen over the phone.  But what if some police departments in Virginia decided that the report would have to be taken in person?  Would a squad car then appear in front of the woman's home?  She'd then have to face the curious stares and questions of her neighbors, yet another gross violation of privacy.  Would she be required to produce the "products of conception" for the police officer's inspection?  Again, I know this is gory, but I've been present when a friend miscarried in early pregnancy.   I know what early "products of conception" may look like.  And I am outraged that some man in Chesapeake would come along and try to pass a law that says I or any other Virginia woman who experiences miscarriage at home might have to weigh them so I can include this information in the report in the first 12 hours after miscarriage or face a year in jail.

Cosgrove has said that his intention with this bill was to eliminate 'trashcan babies,' children who are born and abandoned -- but the bill does not require that the deaths of newborns be reported, only fetuses. And, under this law, it won't matter if the miscarriage occurred in the first month or the fourth or the sixth. It requires all 'products of conception' to be reported. This is coming perilously close to having the state staring in the bathroom window to count the number of tampons or pads used, and then keeping a chart of the results.

And I seriously doubt that all the police in Virginia are going to be any more pleased about this than I am. They have work to do already, and they don't need to be publicly tracking the fertility cycles of their mothers and sisters and wives and daughters and cousins.

For your reference -- Class One misdemeanors include statutory rape, bomb threats, stalking and providing alcohol to minors. In what way is having a miscarriage similar to any of these? None. Why should a woman be faced with a year in jail and a $2500 fine because her body decided she shouldn't be pregnant any more?

What you can do about this:

-- If you live in Virginia -- hell, even if you don't -- you can write to Cosgrove through his webpage and ask him how this bill of his (which has no cosponsors) will benefit the women of Virginia? Of what benefit is it to the general population of Virginia as a whole?

-- If you live in Virginia -- write to your own Delegate and State Senator and demand that they oppose this bill. Encourage any other women you know in the state to do the same.

-- If you live in Virginia -- find someone to stand against John Cosgrove in the 78th District in this year's election. Find a woman who has strength and courage who can defeat him -- this bill will give her a good place to start to build a platform to oppose him.

-- If you do not live in Virginia, but live in a different Red State in the old South, Midwest or West -- start tracking the legislation going through your own statehouse and keep an eye out for copycat legislation. When Michigan passed the law allowing medical providers not to provide care or services 'if it went against their religious beliefs', the same law was picked up and passed by six more statehouses.

-- Regardless of where you live, you might consider writing a letter to the editor of a major newspaper in your area, expressing your feelings about this bill. Publicizing the bad effects of a bill is a first step to keep it from becoming law -- but it also brings the issue to the attention of people who might not have spoken up otherwise. Last year, when the law was being considered concerning partial-birth abortions, the most telling news article I saw was the interview with the Mormon women who had needed that procedure to save their lives. They were married, proper conservative women, and without that procedure none of them would still be alive.

Thanks to mecurtin for the heads-up on this.