When the state claims custody of a fetus, it requires an incubator [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Sun Jan 25, 2015 at 07:30 AM PST.

When the state claims custody of a fetus, it requires an incubator

by Susan Grigsby
for Daily Kos.

On Thursday, January 22, having failed to win a pardon from the El Salvadoran justice system, a young woman won her freedom after a pardon was granted by El Salvador's Parliamentary Assembly, according to Amnesty International. The young woman, "Guadalupe," has already served seven years of the 30-year jail sentence she received after suffering a miscarriage the state judged to be an abortion.

El Salvador has one of the most draconian abortion laws in the world, criminalizing abortion on all grounds, even when a woman or girls’ life or health is in danger and in cases of rape. Women and girls suspected of having illegal abortions are also often cruelly and deliberately charged with homicide, as in Guadalupe’s case.

And so most Americans can return to our everyday lives feeling that justice has been served and being grateful that America is a bastion of human rights, unlike our sovereign neighbors to the south.
Well, they can do so if they choose to ignore the fact that what happened to Guadalupe in El Salvador happens here on a regular basis. American women, in states both red and blue, have been detained, imprisoned, and even forced to undergo unwanted surgery because they have been guilty of being pregnant. In 2006, Julie B. Ehrlich and Lynn M. Paltrow of National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) wrote:

Pregnant women have been arrested and jailed in South Carolina, New Mexico, Arizona, Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Missouri, North Dakota and New Hampshire, among other states, based on the claim that pregnant women can be considered child abusers even before they have given birth.
Women targeted for these arrests are usually those with untreated drug or alcohol problems.

Other women have also been arrested for endangering the fetus by not getting to the hospital quickly enough on the day of delivery and by not following doctor's advice to get bed rest. One woman who suffered a stillbirth was arrested for murder based on the claim that by exercising her right to medical decision-making and postponing a Caesarean section, she caused the death of her child.

More:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/25/1359554/-When-the-state-claims-custody-of-a-fetus-it-requires-an-incubator?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29#