•A woman in Utah gave birth to twins. When one was stillborn, she was arrested and charged with criminal homicide based on the claim that her decision to delay cesarean surgery was the cause of the stillbirth.
•After a hearing that lasted less than a day, a court issued an order requiring a critically-ill pregnant woman in Washington, D.C. to undergo cesarean surgery over her objections. Neither she nor her baby survived.
•A judge in Ohio kept a woman imprisoned to prevent her from having an abortion.
•A woman in Oregon who did not comply with a doctor’s recommendation to have additional testing for gestational diabetes was subjected to involuntary civil commitment. During her detention, the additional testing was never performed.
•A Louisiana woman was charged with murder and spent approximately a year in jail before her counsel was able to show that what was deemed a murder of a fetus or newborn was actually a miscarriage that resulted from medication given to her by a health care provider.
•In Texas, a pregnant woman who sometimes smoked marijuana to ease nausea and boost her appetite gave birth to healthy twins. She was arrested for delivery of a controlled substance to a minor.
•A doctor in Wisconsin had concerns about a woman’s plans to have her birth attended by a midwife. As a result, a civil court order of protective custody for the woman’s fetus was obtained. The order authorized the sheriff’s department to take the woman into custody, transport her to a hospital, and subject her to involuntary testing and medical treatment.
On Tuesday, January 15th, the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law will publish our study, “Arrests of and Forced Interventions on Pregnant Women* in the United States, 1973-2005: Implications for Women’s* Legal Status and Public Health.” This study makes clear that post-Roe anti-choice and “pro-life” measures are being used to do more than limit access to abortion; they are providing the basis for arresting people, locking them up, and forcing them to submit to medical interventions, including surgery. The cases documented in our study through 2005, as well as more recent cases, make clear that 40 years after Roe v. Wade was decided, far more is at stake than abortion or reproductive rights. Pregnant people face attacks on virtually every right associated with constitutional personhood, including the very basic right to physical liberty.
Our study identified 413 criminal and civil cases involving the arrests, detentions, and equivalent deprivations of pregnant people’s physical liberty that occurred between 1973 (when Roe v. Wade was decided) and 2005. Because many cases are not reported publicly, we know that this is a substantial under count. Furthermore, new data collection indicates that at least 250 such interventions have taken place since 2005.
No state has passed a law exempting pregnant women from the protections of the state and federal constitution. And, under Roe v. Wade, abortion remains legal.
Yet, since 1973, many states have passed feticide measures and laws restricting access to safe abortion care that, like so-called “personhood” measures, encourage state actors to treat eggs, embryos, and fetuses as if they are legally separate from the pregnant woman. We found that these laws have been used as the basis for a disturbing range of punitive state actions in every region of the country and against women of every race, though disproportionately against women in the South, low-income women and African-American women.
Women have been arrested while still pregnant, taken straight from the hospital in handcuffs, and sometimes shackled around the waist and at the ankles. Pregnant women have been held under house arrest and incarcerated in jails and prisons. Pregnant women have been held in locked psychiatric wards, as well as in hospitals and in drug treatment programs under 24-hour guard. They have been forced to undergo intimate medical exams and blood transfusions over their religious objections. Women have been forced to submit to cesarean surgery. They have been arrested shortly after giving birth while dressed only in hospital gowns. And, despite claims by some anti-choice activists that women themselves will not be arrested if abortion is re-criminalized, women who have ended their pregnancies and had abortions are already being arrested.
Snyder told the Detroit News that his decision to sign the bill, as well as to veto a bill involving an insurance company that also would have banned abortion coverage in the insurance plan, was a result of “soul searching,” stating that he vetoed the Blue Cross/Blue Shield ban because “it is wrong to tell private insurers and employers what they can negotiate in their contracts.” On the other hand, telling women what they should be allowed medically to do with their own bodies is less worrisome for Snyder. Snyder called the final version of the superbill mostly stripped of “controversial” issues, telling Detroit News, ”To be screened for coercion is a reasonable thing. It is really a question of women’s health and safety.”
Along with the “anti-coercion” provision, H.B. 5711 includes a new law requiring that all clinics that perform more than 10 abortions a month be licensed as freestanding surgical outpatient facilities, a move that could shutter some clinics but is more likely to affect the opening of new clinics in the state. Those currently in business should be able to apply for waivers regarding some administrative and building regulations.
Also part of H.B. 5711 is a ban on tele-med abortions, a form of medication abortion that could have made the procedure much more accessible for women in rural areas, especially those with less financial means.
“Screening for coercion is already a part of the process of getting an abortion,” Meghan Groen, Director of Government Relations for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan, which lobbied against the bill, told RH Reality Check. “Tele-medicine is becoming a new way to provide more access for women in rural or other communities, and can be performed with the help of nurse practitioners. It is frustrating that when the governor says it is wrong to tell private businesses what they can or can’t do, when it comes to a medical decision between a health practitioner and patient the legislature can step in.”
Still, Groen admits that the final bill could have been much worse than what passed. Revisions to the bill modified restrictions that would have all-but eliminated access to safe abortion care, but left in place regulations that will nonetheless severely restrict access for many women and greatly hamper efforts to expand it. “It was a bad bill, and he should have vetoed it, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been,” said Groen.
Michigan Democratic Senator Gretchen Whitmer, who opposed the bill, was much less generous. Whitmer thoroughly criticized Snyder’s signing of the bill, saying via statement,
“It’s offensive, but no longer surprising, that Governor Snyder would align himself with extremists in his own party by putting his signature on a bill that represents the most blatant attack on women’s healthcare we’ve seen in Michigan. He can claim this is somehow about protecting our health all he wants, but we all know this disgraceful new law will only succeed in reducing or eliminating women’s access to cancer screenings and other critically important care. Republicans across the country saw the consequences of their war on women this past November and if Governor Snyder thinks we’re naive enough to believe his ridiculous excuses for signing this bill into law, he’s sadly mistaken.”
The signing of the bill, as well as the veto of the insurance coverage legislation reveals the twisted path down which Snyder is walking as he plans his reelection campaign. Recent polling ranks him as the third most unpopular governor in the country.
“I am giving up meat until abortion ends. Abortion is genocide of the human race and a terrible disgusting thing.”
“I love junk-food a lot, but until abortion ends; no more potato chips, no more ice cream, no more cake. All of my food will be healthy. God bless the children who couldn’t be given a chance. <3”
“I have been chewing, dipping, smoking, puffing on tobacco products since I was young. Although no addiction has formed, I know what sacrifice and prayer can do to bring about good. I will sacrifice my tobacco habit and pray daily for the end of abortion.”
“Happily depriving myself of Butterfingers, my favorite candy bar, until babies are no longer deprived of LIFE, Even if that means i will never eat one again!!(:”“I’m giving up blue jean pants & blue jean shorts, and blue jean capris. (I’m keeping blue jean skirts.)”
“Until abortion is ended i will not drink an energy drink even if i need it”
“Pies are my favorite dessert (especially blueberry) but I am willing to give them up until abortion is illegal.”
Go ahead, give up your snacks, you’re not gonna take our rights away.
At least you’ll all be healthier.
The “until abortion ends” things make me side-eye so hard. It’s not going to work. If you want to throw a useless tantrum nobody cares about why don’t you just hold your breath while you’re at it.
Basically, Michigan is fucking up big time right now in their lame duck session. Michiganders, PLEASE call your representative and let them know what you think about this.
A TEXT MESSAGE was the first sign that something was wrong. In the week after Hurricane Sandy hit Haiti, our research team was assessing post-disaster crime, food security and service provision. The message came from a Haitian researcher in our group, an enthusiastic and talented graduate student whom we’ll call Wendy. She had been walking alone a few blocks from our hotel when she was forced into a house and brutally raped.
We quickly located a doctor but he refused to examine Wendy, saying she needed to be seen by the authorities first. We then contacted the police, and after a grueling interview in which one officer repeatedly asked Wendy, “What did you do to make him violate you?” the police said she was free to be examined. The doctor, however, couldn’t be found.
Although Haiti routinely suffers from political and natural disasters, rape is an especially insidious crisis. Haiti’s brutal dictatorships used rape as a political tool to undermine the opposition. A 2006 study reported that some 35,000 women and girls in Port-au-Prince were sexually assaulted in a single year. In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, residents of the capital’s tent cities were 20 times more likely to report a sexual assault than other Haitians.
