Miscarriage = Criminal Homicide?

Sitting on the Utah Governor Gary Herbert’s desk awaiting his signature is HB12, a piece of legislation that criminalizes miscarriage. Under this statute, a woman who induces a miscarriage or obtains an illegal abortion can be prosecuted for criminal homicide, although legal abortion is still protected. Even a woman who engages in “reckless behavior” that leads to her miscarriage is legally responsible as long as the prosecutor can show this behavior contributed to the miscarriage. This includes women who had accidental miscarriages and never wanted to lose their fetus. The incidents that lie under “reckless behavior” are not defined, creating a broad scope of punishable offenses that could possibly include substance abuse, being a victim of domestic violence, not wearing a seatbelt and falling down the stairs .

This law is a major blow to women’s reproductive rights, establishing a punitive system for pregnant women. Utah is the first state to have a feticide law that attacks the woman and not the third party by making her legally responsible. If this bill is passed, a big question is going to be whether or not they are going to enforce it. Every miscarriage could potentially be caused by reckless behavior. Does this mean Utah law enforcement is going to investigate every miscarriage in the state? I doubt it. 25% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, and the time and money it would take to try and investigate all known miscarriages is exuberant. Yet this law may carry more weight than just a message. The law was originally proposed because of a case where a 17-year-old girl paid a man $150 to beat her in a failed attempt to cause a miscarriage. The girl was initially charged with attempted murder, but the charges were dropped because, at the time, under Utah state law a woman could not be prosecuted for attempting to arrange an abortion, lawful or unlawful. With the new law, however, this girl and others like her can be prosecuted in situations like this and many others.

Spending the Semester at Planned Parenthood

I first became interested in sex education advocacy when I was in eighth grade and attended a ‘Condom Jewelry and Sex Education’ workshop at a conference for Unitarian Universalist youth I was attending. The workshop was run by two high schoolers and focused on making youth comfortable with condoms and educating them about safe sex, STDs, and GLBTQ issues. Not only was it a lot of fun making necklaces and bracelets out of condoms, including flavored ones, glitter, and beads, but I really got my first perspective on the reality of sex education in America. At my private middle school we received sex education in 7^th and 8^th grade and even had an outreach educator from Planned Parenthood come in and talk to us, so I wasn’t aware that a huge portion of students received no knowledge about contraceptives or birth control in school. As a teenager the issue was very personal for me. I was one of the ‘impressionable children’ that a huge sector of society was trying to keep from being sexually active by promoting abstinence only education.

By having the perspective a youth, I thought it was naïve to believe that abstinence only education was the most appropriate policy to teach to youth. Of course teenagers were going to have sex and preaching abstinence was not going to prevent it. It seemed obvious to me that youth need to be fully informed about how to protect themselves from STDs and pregnancy, so they can engage safely in sex. I had a lot of questions about why this was such an issue. How can people think that education is a bad thing? Becoming sexually active is a choice that a person has to make for him or herself, so why is the government trying to control a person’s choices by withholding information from them? It made me angry and frustrated to think that people thought teaching youth how to protect themselves was worse than sending them out into a world full of sex without the knowledge to make smart choices.

Gaga and Lauper speak out for HIV/AIDS awareness!

I am so surprised I just now stumbled upon this awesome interview with Lady Gaga and Cyndi Lauper on Good Morning America. I am borderline obsessed with La Gaga and I am clearly invested in HIV/AIDS prevention among women so I can't believe this slipped under my radar!

So here's the deal. Gaga and Lauper are serving as celebrity spokespeople for MAC Cosmetics' Viva Glam Campaign. They each have a signature Viva Glam lip shade. The lipsticks are truly a steal at $14 and proceeds up to 2.5 million dollars will fund model programs that address the vulnerabilities and inequities that place women at increased risk for HIV/AIDS. Find more info at http://www.macaidsfund.org/ and be sure to watch the video below!