Here's this week's reproductive rights news brought to you by the women of Our Word (and at least one of the guys!). If you see something you find relevant please email it to me, bayprairie at gmail dot com.

In Indiana a State Representative is getting ready to introduce a misguided fetal rights bill in an effort to criminalize abortion. I feel that if you assign full legal rights to a fetus you can't apply them selectively.

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Abortion Bill Backer Confident :::free registration required:::

INDIANAPOLIS - State Rep. Troy Woodruff has drafted a bill that would make abortions illegal in Indiana except when a mother's health is in danger, a bill that would bring a firestorm of debate and national attention if filed.

Woodruff, R-Vincennes, said Friday he's "feeling pretty confident" that he will file the bill.

Woodruff said the bill as drafted would define life as beginning at conception and would alter Indiana's feticide law.

The current law makes feticide a Class C felony, punishable with a two- to eight-year prison sentence, except in the case of an abortion performed under the state's guidelines. The bill would make all abortions a Class C felony except in the case where a pregnancy endangers a mother's health, Woodruff said.

"I think it's very important that we do everything we can to protect Hoosiers whether they're born or not," he said. When asked if the law would run afoul of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade, Woodruff said, "This would be a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade."

Bills such as these, if passed, will open up a pandora's box of injustice for pregnant women. Fetal rights do not come free. When courts, lawmakers and institutions decide to award rights to fetuses, the award translates into costs for women. People most commonly associate "fetal rights" with efforts to curtial abortion. But once you assign full human rights to a fetus they can't be applied selectively, or only in cases of abortion. There will be unintended consquences. Let me illustrate with some examples.

Could You Be Forced To Have A C-Section?

Amber Marlowe anticipated an easy delivery when she went into labor on January 14, 2004. But after a routine ultrasound, doctors at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital, in Pennsylvania, decided that the baby--at what looked like 13 pounds--was too big to deliver vaginally and told her that she needed to have a cesarean. The mom-to-be, however, wasn't convinced: After all, she'd given birth to her six previous kids the natural way, including other large babies. And monitoring showed that the fetus was in no apparent distress.

After she said no to surgery, doctors spent hours trying to change her mind. When that didn't work, the hospital went to court, seeking an order to become her unborn baby's legal guardian. A judge ruled that the doctors could perform a "medically necessary" c-section against the mom's will, if she returned to that hospital. Meanwhile, she and her husband checked out against the doctors' advice and went to another hospital, where she later gave birth vaginally to a healthy 11-pound girl. "When I found out about the court order, I couldn't believe the hospital would do something like that. It was scary and very shocking," says Marlowe. "All this just because I didn't want a c-section."

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Coercive Medicine
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Defying doctors' advice can even lead to criminal prosecution, as Melissa Rowland discovered last year. While pregnant with twins, the 28-year-old Utah mom initially declined a recommended c-section, even though doctors warned that without it her babies might die due to low levels of amniotic fluid and other problems. Several days later, on January 13, 2004, she changed her mind and had the operation. Her daughter, Hannah, survived after treatment with oxygen and antibiotics, but a twin boy was stillborn. Contending that the initial refusal caused his death, prosecutors charged Rowland with first-degree murder. After spending three months in jail, she accepted a deal in which the murder charge was dismissed in return for her guilty plea to two counts of child endangerment (unrelated to her c-section refusal). She's now free, and serving 18 months of probation.

"This case is a tragedy compounded by a shocking abuse of legal authority," contends Lynn Paltrow, executive director of NAPW and a lawyer specializing in reproductive issues. "It shouldn't be a crime for pregnant women to disagree with doctors and make their own medical decisions. Nor should they be punished for a bad outcome when there's always some risk to giving birth, regardless of whether it's vaginal or by c-section."

Stopping a woman's right to choose an abortion by the mechanism of writing into law full fetal rights is a mistake. The following is from Testimony To The South Dakota Task Force To Study Abortion by Lynn M. Paltrow, J.D.

It is not possible to treat pregnant women and fetuses as competing legal entities in the context of abortion without undermining the health, wellbeing and safety of all pregnant women and new mothers.

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If pregnancy is a "legal" "relationship," with opposing rights and the possibility of state oversight, the implications for the civil rights, health and well-being of pregnant women and their children is in serious question. Does a pregnant woman who cannot overcome her addiction to cigarettes violate this "legal" "relationship," making her an appropriate subject for court ordered treatment, arrest for child endangerment, or child welfare interventions? Does a woman lose her right to informed medical decision when she becomes pregnant? Could the state mandate that all women deliver by c-section because of perceived benefits to the unborn child? Could the state outlaw vaginal births after c-sections?

Similarly, if pregnancy is viewed as a legal relationship between completely separate parties having separate, competing rights, shouldn't every woman who has experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth be questioned about the extent to which she may have contributed to that pregnancy loss and whether those actions or omissions constituted an appropriate legal waiver?

These questions do not represent far-fetched hypothetical possibilities.

i sent this to artemisia to look at and asked her to speculate on the potential legal scope and impact of this kind of legislation. Here's what she sent back to me.

Extending full human rights to a fetus would criminalize not just deliberate acts, but acts of recklessness or neglect, regardless of the stage or pregnancy. Play soccer when you are 2 months along and get hit hard in the belly? Reckless endangerment. A reasonable woman should have known soccer was dangerous to the fetus. If a miscarriage results? Criminally negligent homicide. Speeding ticket for going 75 in a 65 zone? Also reckless endangerment of the fetus.

And how soon would a woman be required to know if she was pregnant? Have a couple of glasses of wine when your period is three days late? Would a reasonable woman have had a pregnancy test at this point? Was she negligent for failing to get tested before having that wine?

Perhaps all women should be required to take a home pregnancy test after every sexual encounter. After all, if human rights are bestowed at conception then you are liable for actions that affect the fetus even before you miss a period. Even taking prescribed medicine two days after having a sexual encounter could be a criminal offense if that drug is contraindicated during pregnancy.

Think of the treasure trove of work for forensic obstetricians. Every time a baby is born with a birth defect, every time a baby is born underweight, every time a baby is born, a team of experts could be gathered to analyze whether the baby's condition was in anyway negatively impacted by some behavior of the mother. And what would the statute of limitations be on such offenses? If the child is hyperactive at 5, can police charge a woman with eating too much sugar during pregnancy? If a teenager is not as tall as his peers, can he sue his mother for smoking during pregnancy?

Far fetched? I'm thinking, in some cases, not.

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Following up on South Dakota news

S.D. Makes Abortion Rare Through Laws And Stigma
Out-of-State Doctors Come Weekly to 1 Clinic

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- The waiting room at the Planned Parenthood clinic was packed by the time the doctor arrived -- an hour late because of weather delays in Minneapolis.

It was clinic day, the one day a week when the only facility in South Dakota that provides abortions could take in patients. This time it was a Wednesday. The week before it was a Monday.

The day changes depending on the schedules of four doctors from Minnesota who fly here on a rotating basis to perform abortions, something no doctor in South Dakota will do. The last doctor in South Dakota to perform abortions stopped about eight years ago; the consensus in the medical community is that offering the procedure is not worth the stigma of being branded a baby killer.

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Each week, 15 to 20 or so women from across South Dakota find their way to the Sioux Falls Planned Parenthood for an abortion, no easy feat for many of them. South Dakota is home to some of the poorest counties in the country, including the poorest, Buffalo County, seat of the Crow Creek Sioux reservation. State law forbids any public funding for the $450 procedure, even in the case of rape or incest. Beyond cost, there is the distance. It's a long slog here from places like Rapid City, about 350 miles away in the western part of the state. For some women, the only way to do it -- and not pay for a hotel room -- is to make the 700-mile trip in one day.

"Women in the western side of the state don't think about abortion until they need to," said Kate Looby, Planned Parenthood's state director, "and then they're completely shocked that there's no way to receive that care unless they go to Sioux Falls." Even women in a medical or life-threatening emergency have only one hospital to go to that will perform an emergency abortion, she added. "One hospital. In the entire state, again in Sioux Falls."

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"I figured I could get the abortion in Rapid City," said the woman, who has a 2-year-old daughter. "And I didn't know it would be so expensive. We had to borrow the money to get here."

The woman was 45 days pregnant, she said, the day she drove 350 miles to take the RU-486 abortion pill and then drive back. "I have to get back home to my daughter," said the woman, who said she was working full time and attending college part time to become a medical administrator. (She and the others interviewed did not want their names in the newspaper.) The woman said she had decided on abortion because "I can't afford another child, and I need to finish school and work to support the one I got." She receives $50 a month in child support and less than $200 a month in food stamps but was deemed ineligible for any further public assistance because of her full-time job.

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One law passed in South Dakota this year is an informed-consent measure that requires doctors to tell women in writing and in person two hours before an abortion of the medical risks of the procedure and that an abortion ends the life of "a whole, separate, unique living human being." Enforcement of the law has been blocked by a lawsuit from Planned Parenthood.

Another measure is a "trigger law" that automatically bans all abortions in the state should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade .

Leslee Unruh, one of the prime lobbyists for the law that created the abortion task force, said, "I want abortion to end."

I have a couple of observations.

$50 a month in child support? Do you suppose that's a typo? I wish the reporter had gone into a little more detail on that aspect of the story. I mean it makes me wonder if her ex-husband's job is in a prison laundry or if theres a judge in South Dakota who's not pro-life at all, or at least not post-birth.

Ms. Unruh states she "want(s) abortion to end". I find it hard to believe Ms. Unruh is so uninformed as to think removing the right to legal abortions will somehow end abortions. South America, and our own experiences in this country pre-Roe certainly proove that point beyond a doubt.

Leslee Unruh, acording to her husband's website is a cofounder of a Crisis Pregnancy Center.

Dr. Unruh and his wife, Leslee, are the founders of the Alpha Center'