"Personhood" Laws

[Kaylee]

Does anybody have any links or good resources that list which states have already passed laws that define a fetus as a legal person, as a way to criminalize abortion (usually claimed to "protect" pregnant women who are murdered or assaulted though).

Along the same lines, links or names/states for cases where women have been charged under these laws would be great. I know they have been used to prosecute women who miscarried due to drug abuse and suicide attempts, but I was thinking I remembered one case where a woman was threatened with the law after falling and can't find it now.

This has come up on another board where someone is pushing people to vote for a personhood law/amendment, another woman mentioned that it seemed dangerous because it could be used to prosecute miscarriage, and of course the OP is all "no, that'd never happen, it's absurd to bring it up, you must not care about the babeez!". Would be un-lazy and look it up myself, but I'm gonna be gone most of the day.

[Paisy]

I'm pretty sure no state has actually passed this. It has flopped miserably every time it has been attempted because most people are not idiots.

[dawbs]

I actually remember there being a case about a woman who fell...

haven't found it yet.

[Paisy]

Not the case you're referring to dawbs, but other cases in which women have been charged with the death of their fetuses. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ju ... er-charges

[dawbs]

that's appalling.

Found the stairs one:

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2010 ... own-stairs

[Paisy]

While I'm in favor of some feticide laws as they were supposedly intended, I hate so much that laws can be abused like this. For example when a pregnant woman is murdered I'm perfectly okay with the murderer being charged a double homicide. But then what started out as something that seemed perfectly logical becomes twisted by some crazy person with an agenda and is taken advantage of (although I do realize that many proponents of the law had this agenda all along). It reminds me of the teenage lovers who meet when she's 15 and he 17. They become sexually active, as teenagers so commonly do, and once the boy turns 18 he's sent to prison for statutory rape and must live the rest of his life as a registered sex offender. Those stories break my heart.

[Rosa]

one of the articles about Christine Taylor included a link to this one, where a working mom of toddlers was forced into hospital bed rest because her doctor felt that her fetus was at risk:

http://news.change.org/stories/doctor-g ... t-her-will

[aubrietta]

I just posted this youtube video on my Facebook today, and was unfriended by someone (she made sure to tell me before she unfriended me) I told her it was clear to me that if she was offended by this, she obviously is only pro-fetus, and doesn't actually care about pregnant women. After that, she blocked me so she doesn't even show up when I search for her. Good riddance!

Anyways, this has quite the list of cases where the personhood laws have caused problems for pregnant women with wanted pregnancies.

[dawn9476]

No state has passed them. Colorado has tried twice and both times, the amendment failed miserably.

[Kaylee]

Thanks for the help everyone - found the ones I was looking for, plus a few I didn't know about. I'm gonna post links and see how it goes. It's kind of odd because this is a group on a site you would think would be more openminded ,but one of the mods is ultra conservative, anti-abortion, and seriously tries to skew discussion that way (ie, any claims that Prop 26 might harm women have to be supported, but she can talk about "killing babies" and accuse people of not valuing life all she wants to)