Miscarriage certificates, similar to birth certificates, could soon be issued in Louisiana

[RandySF]

Louisiana would start issuing “commemorative certificates” for miscarriages — documents that closely resemble birth certificates given out when babies are born — under legislation that looks likely to become law.

House Bill 457, sponsored by Rep. Raymond Crews, R-Bossier City, encourages doctors to tell people who lost pregnancies at 20 weeks or earlier that they are entitled to a government-issued certificate commemorating the event.

Like a government-issued birth certificate, this miscarriage certificate would be required to list the name and gender of the lost fetus if that information is known.

If no name is given, the state vital records staff would be required to list Baby, Baby Boy or Baby Girl in the first-name slot on the certificate. The last name of the person who lost the pregnancy would also be automatically assigned to the fetus and included on the document.

Under the bill, the miscarriage certificate would have a disclaimer that it is not “proof of a live birth,” and the state would be prohibited from using these documents to calculate live birth statistics.




https://lailluminator.com/briefs/miscarriage-certificates-similar-to-birth-certificates-could-soon-be-issued-in-louisiana/

[oioioi]

1. why?

"But people who experience a miscarriage might not be able to stop a doctor or medical professional from broaching the subject of a commemorative certificate, even if they don’t believe a lost fetus is the equivalent of a baby.

The legislation leaves the decision about whether a commemorative certificate is discussed after a miscarriage up to the doctor, midwife or medical facility that treats the patient — not the person who lost the pregnancy."

[underpants]

3. That was the first word that popped into my head

Why???

[drray23]

13. its simply a way for them to move towards making fetuses or even cells

have human rights and hence completely ban abortion and consider contraception murder.

[Ms. Toad]

16. I have a lot of experience with parents who miscarry -

I have both photographed and retouched photographs others have taken of children who die near birth (either shortly before or shortly after). Not a single one believes the child they lost is a "fetus," from those who miscarried at 16 weeks (about the youngest I've worked with) to those who were born live at full term but lived only a few minutes. For the most part they grieve their lost child in much the same way they would grieve one born at full term but later died. Many of them suffer repeated miscarriages. Each loss increases the grief and hopelessness.

That doesn't mean that they would want a commemorative certificate - I suspect they would (in the same way they cherish the mementoes the hospital gives them of tiny hand and footprints. But I can tell you that they would be highly offended at the suggestion that their chid is "only" a fetus, and is somehow less a part of their family because they did not make it to birth.

Asking people miscarrying in a hospital about whether they want items commenorating their loss is perfectly appropriate. Couples used to be told to just forget that they had been pregnant, move on, and try again. In the context of talking about my work, I have spoken to many women around my age who still carry tremendous grief around - largely because the thought at the time was that it wasn't a real loss and they never had any family or medical support in grieving their loss.

The politics around this are horrific - embedded as it is in the anti-abortion laws. But ignoring the real grief many parents feel as the loss of their pregnancy puts policy above people.

[oioioi]

19. Thanks for explaining - you would have done a better job at writing this story than the author...

The quotes are from the article.

[Ms. Toad]

20. I had a general idea before I started working with Now I Lay me Down to Sleep

That was pretty instant immersion, since I was not only working directly with grieving parents, but we were encouraged to spend time on the parent support boards - where I met the women in their 50s and 60s who were never allowed to grieve for their losses.

My work with them was triggered by my brother's loss. He and his wife had a baby who died a few days after birth from a heart condition. They have almost nothing to remember him by - and would have loved to have someone take pictures so they could better remember his very short life.

[oioioi]

22. That sounds intense but good on you for doing something positive to help others

Given the improvements in healthcare outcomes and contraception, presumably the cultural attitudes around miscarriage have also changed significantly from the past. There's some commentary about it here: https://digpodcast.org/2019/02/10/miscarriage-nineteenth-century-america/

[Ms. Toad]

24. Thanks!

I recently did a photography project on an early founder of the community I now live in. I picked the person to focus on, in part, because six of his dozen or so children died the same day they were born.

I have no idea whether they were early miscarriages or full term, but I found gravesites for all of them - Infant son or infant daughter of the person I was focusing on. All except one who lived a short while - she had a name. He lived to his 90s, so his grave is half a cemetary away from his parents, his children, and most of his siblings. But - assuming some of these were miscarriages, that is certainly a different treatment than happens nowdays.

To some extent it's like the changes in attitudes about pregnancy and nursing. When I was growing up you rarely, if ever, saw a woman outside of the home who was pregnant, then it became commmon. Same thing with nursing - children not much older than I was were nursed until between age 1 and 2. My generation was bottle-fed (pushed by the formula manufacturers ad the better way). I fought that mentality when I had my daughter 32 years ago and nursed her (without much support, even from people whose job it was to support nursing mothers). I've lost track of where it is now. But we seem to know things, then forget them, and then relearn them.

[oioioi]

26. I'd always assumed that old gravesites for un-named infants were

either stillborn or died shortly after delivery. Presumably there's a dissertation or two out there on this matter, but I would have guessed that since miscarriage and infant mortality were more frequent historically, that would imply that miscarriage before term was perceived to be a less significant event than it is today, although I have never considered the matter before - whereas it's abundantly clear that you have. Understanding that for many people there's a grieving process involved, it's pretty clear from reading other posts in this thread that it's not universal.

Your observation about bottles being pushed by the corporate interests made me think more about the the podcast article I posted, which talks about the transition from midwifery to medicine as being a way that men took control of pregnancy and delivery in the nineteenth century and perhaps the "monetization" of child rearing during the twentieth century to which you refer is an extension of that process. I've never given this any thought before, so thank you again for the enlightenment.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Way beyond creepy

[madaboutharry]

4. Republicans finding more ways to traumatize women.

They just don’t know how to get out of the way of people’s personal lives.

[RKP5637]

8. Exactly what "The Terrorist Party" wants to do. They want to traumatize and

persecute as many as they can. And the GOP is ALWAYS into peoples genitalia. GOP, Grand Old Pedophiles.

[Raven123]

5. So miscarriages are a matter of public record. Tasteless and cruel

[alwaysinasnit]

6. Does this seem like an attempt to establish fetal personhood?

[intrepidity]

11. Yes. nt

[RKP5637]

7. Many would probably like to put it in the back of their mind, not some idiotic

certificate. For many it is extremely stressful!

[Ms. Toad]

17. The women I've worked with -

Including many decades later who are still traumatized by their loss being trivialized would disagree with you. People who are encouraged to grieve, rather than pretending it never happened, generally cope with this loss far more easily.

[RKP5637]

25. Interesting! Thanks!!! n/t

[ecstatic]

9. Sponsored by Raymond Crews, a republican male

I just can't.

[Montauk6]

10. Maybe it's already happening, I don't know...

... but is there equally an effort by these terrorists to require a coroner's inquest for all miscarriages?

Seriously, this country, WTF!?

[Pas-de-Calais]

12. Brought to you by the party who cannot find

Better things to do

[Freethinker65]

14. JFC.

I miscarried at a Christian hospital over 25 years ago. They wanted me to have a funeral and burial for a clump of tissue expelled where, according to pathology reports, no fetal tissue was even found. I told them absolutely not.
A year later, the damned hospital calls me when my son (conceived after previous miscarriage) was gaining strength in the NUCU), to attend mass for the loss of my child. I almost fainted thinking my son in NICU had died! Oh no, this for for last year. I pretty much told them to stop traumatizing me and fuck off while my living newborn was still fighting for his life.

These idiot Christian do-gooders just do not understand not everyone believes like they do.

[Hekate]

15. Someone is keeping track

[dembotoz]

18. this will be a part of your permanent record

every sperm is sacred

[NotASurfer]

21. Next up, the law to issue a certificate of non pregnancy

When your period tracker updates. I guess they'd have to go after masturbators next and issue 15 million certificates, one per sperm that never made it, for every incident

[Hortensis]

23. Control. Are women supposed to carry these in their purses

so they can be produced if the police have questions?