women who lose babies face murder charges
This is a hard one to judge...
What are your thoughts. Is it going a bit over the top and criminalizing those who actually need help ?
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Women's rights campaigners see the creeping criminalization of pregnant women as a new front in the culture wars over abortion
Rennie Gibbs is accused of murder, but the crime she is alleged to have committed does not sound like an ordinary killing. Yet she faces life in prison over the death of her unborn child.
Gibbs became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006 in a stillbirth when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy. When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit – though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby's death – they charged her with the "depraved-heart murder" of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence.
But her case is by no means isolated. Across the US more and more prosecutions are being brought that seek to turn pregnant women into criminals.
Bei Bei Shuai, 34, has spent the past three months in a prison cell in Indianapolis charged with murdering her baby. On 23 December she tried to commit suicide by taking rat poison after her boyfriend abandoned her.
Shuai was rushed to hospital and survived, but she was 33 weeks pregnant and her baby, to whom she gave birth a week after the suicide attempt and whom she called Angel, died after four days. In March Shuai was charged with murder and attempted foeticide and she has been in custody since without the offer of bail.
In Alabama at least 40 cases have been brought under the state's "chemical endangerment" law. Introduced in 2006, the statute was designed to protect children whose parents were cooking methamphetamine in the home and thus putting their children at risk from inhaling the fumes.
Amanda Kimbrough is one of the women who have been ensnared as a result of the law being applied in a wholly different way. During her pregnancy her foetus was diagnosed with possible Down's syndrome and doctors suggested she consider a termination, which Kimbrough declined as she is not in favour of abortion.
The baby was delivered by caesarean section prematurely in April 2008 and died 19 minutes after birth.
Six months later Kimbrough was arrested at home and charged with "chemical endangerment" of her unborn child on the grounds that she had taken drugs during the pregnancy – a claim she has denied.
"That shocked me, it really did," Kimbrough said. "I had lost a child, that was enough."
She now awaits an appeal ruling from the higher courts in Alabama, which if she loses will see her begin a 10-year sentence behind bars. "I'm just living one day at a time, looking after my three other kids," she said. "They say I'm a criminal, how do I answer that? I'm a good mother."
Full article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/24/america-pregnant-women-murde...
legal fraternity is not always right..I have pity on the prudence of the cabinet who has passed such a law.
There are always going to be people who jump on any bandwagon - some anti abortionists (IMO) are amongst the most judgemental.
sorry .. DP!
Whilst i agree totally with your sentiments, it is clear that the community at large in the areas mentioned and the legal fraternity thinks otherwise..
First up foetus is a term used to describe the ‘person’ that is in utero. However, very few women say ‘hey guess what I am having a foetus’ they say from the start ‘I am having a baby’.
Some Doctors describe the foetus as a baby once the pregnancy reaches the second trimester. Personally mine were babies as soon as I knew I was having them.
Any pregnancy can go wrong at any stage and sadly babies can be born dead even when the mother has done everything right. We also know that some women who are not good at looking after themselves during pregnancy and go on to have healthy babies.
Gibbs case is unusual as there is no proof the baby died because of what the mother did or did not do. Unless a Post Mortem on the ‘baby’ showed he had died from ‘poisoning’ – then what case do they have against the mother? Perhaps the baby was just not meant to be at that time.
In the case of the girl who drank rat poison – she obviously in her distressed state intended killing herself and consequently her child. Is she guilty of foeticide? In the eyes of the law in some areas of the world she is. However – her mind was obviously disturbed and she should be showed compassion.
Amanda Kimbrough has been treated terribly and I hope somebody sees sense in this case. The poor woman has suffered enough.
I do believe in the protection of unborn children and if a woman takes something voluntary, coolly and dispassionately; intending to kill the child then she has done something very wrong.
Of course in any of these cases one would have to take into account all parameters because as we know there are very sad cases of unwanted pregnancies and sometimes women are driven to desperate measure.
Perhaps you're right ....
"Whilst it seems strange, I suppose the government is trying to send a message telling women to be more careful and consider the welfare of the unborn child when driving or undertaking other activities.."
Yet they can't tell them to strap their kids in?
I think you overestimate the intelligence of the UAE government Brit.
Perhaps the blood money is to be paid to the father of the child..
Whilst it seems strange, I suppose the government is trying to send a message telling women to be more careful and consider the welfare of the unborn child when driving or undertaking other activities..
Common sense really :O)
a presumption of guilt than innocence?
Criminalizing something and legalizing another thing is now the trend there?
As I said, to a certain degree it can be pursued, there are existing laws already place and in effect. Abuse of it make it also wrong on the prosecution side. My view!
case, Flor?
Just because it isn't reported, doesn't mean their aren't any others....
Note this report about the american women is the first one we've seen too regarding them being jailed...
single case? Anyway, the prevalence I was referring to. But goig back to the topic, maybe in some very unique cases, it can be pursued, but the way some cases were handled and information coming out, I find it ridiculous.
So what do they suggest, for nine months stay at home?
Did you mean West Asia :-/
in the East too... or did you miss the link that was posted?
the same sex marriage thing!
west!
I knew it was something like that....
If I think back now, I remember people debating who she was going to be paying the blood money too, since it was her own fetus that had died...
Someones been watching far to much Highlander;-p
Whilst steps must be taken to prevent women willfully harming their unborn children by substance abuse, to judge them as "murderers" is just not fair. If not for any other reason but the fact that many women the world over have,when pregnant, done acts they assumed harmless which then resulted in either a miscarriage,premature birth or the birth of a deformed child. Who is to assume then who did them willfully and accidentally?
TB answered for me :) Also the limits are in place due to the idea of "quickening," which in the past was considered the time when the fetus became an actual living thing.
Xena
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8032780.stm
Xena, I think that may also have to do with some old wives tales here in the UAE. I've had several of my Emirati coworkers telling me how driving is bad for the baby, and I should only go in the car when I have to and only on highways. :P
On the bright side they are currently in the process here of passing a car seat law for all children under the age of 6. :)
do you remember the case in UAE a couple of years back where the mother was jailed due to her miscarrying after an accident in which she was driving.
Am trying to find the link...
If I recall, UAE were then contemplating passing a law that mothers should not be in a car, let alone behind a steering wheel, while pregnant...
I think that the assertion that the fetus is an extension of the mother can only be true for certain time frame, otherwise you would not have limits on abortion.
Well krazy...every sperm is sacred...
Matter of time before they start charging you for murder for using a condom
No. A fetus is not a child. While it's in the mother's womb it's an extension of the mother, not a separate being.
Besides that, charging people who attempt suicide is just adding insult to injury in my opinion.
What about the case of the woman who tried to commit suicide , knowing she was pregnant.. Does that count as attempted murder ?
LOL TB. Well at the moment I can't imagine being charged for murdering my fetus should I miscarry. There's just so many things that can cause a miscarriage or a still-birth, and most of the time we don't know what the cause is.
I understand where they are coming from in regards to wanting to do SOMETHING to stop drug addicted women from harming their unborn babies, but I think this is a bit much. A fetus is not the same as a child and shouldn't be treated as such.
Women should avoid getting pregnant at all to avoid this.
I would agree. If a woman takes drugs during her pregnancy, she endangers the child and should be held accountable.
so will abortion also carry a sentence? :-(
you can have babies at 15 but marriage @ 15 - you are not mature.