She had a stillborn baby. Now she’s being charged with murder.

Yes, they must not be able to tell a born person from the unborn....although most people can

 

It's not 'personal healthcare' when the life of another is involved.

 

Clearly. When you're perfectly okay with killing unborn babies by abortion, but disagree with killing unborn babies by other methods (ie when pregnant women are victims of violent crime it's classified as double murder, or when a pregnant woman loses a child due to a negligent driver it's classified as manslaughter), you have a serious problem with reality.

 

I see a couple problems with being opposed to this. First off pro abortion activists want women to have the ability to abort on the chances of the child being special needs. So why if they care about that status would they argue in favor of using drugs that can harm a baby?

Secondly, if you can be charged with 2 homicides if you kill a pregnant woman why can’t a woman be charged with homicide if she knowingly done something to hurt the baby?

 

FoxHastings said: ↑
Yes, they must not be able to tell a born person from the unborn....although most people can

LOL, where TF did I disagree with that? Funny how those with no good argument must use their imaginations

 

BECAUSE IT'S HER body....it is NOT an assailants !!!!!!!!

 

vegans can put their baby's health at risk imo

but it's a stretch to charge them with murder if they have a miscarriage

 

But, you don't see it as horrific to have a woman trying to defend herself in court against state prosecutors who bring murder charges (or whatever) concerning exactly when she got pregnant, when she KNEW she was pregnant, what medications she took (and on what day), whether she had actually used "too much" alcohol (or whatever), whether she had made other healthcare mistakes leading to miscarriage, etc.?

Seriously, I see that world as MONUMENTALLY unacceptable.

And, let's remember again that a significant percent of pregnancies are not known about during the first 6 weeks - the ONLY period that Texas and other states are allowing abortions of any kind.

Dragging women into court under these circumstances is a CRIME. And, paying citizens to stalk pregnant women is also a crime.

 

You can believe that.

But, the question is whether you have the right to use the LAW to go after women who don't agree with you - just like I don't agree with you.

In general, our law goes up to the constitution, and there is nothing in the constitution about this issue.

 

Actual “life” or only potential?

 

KNOWINGLY aye! That is the rub! How many of those abortifacients on that list are people aware of in relation to pregnancy? Would you charge a woman taking Black Cohosh for menopause with murder if it turns out she was pregnant and miscarried? There is very very little evidence that illicit drugs cause miscarriage (surprisingly) and in fact there is waaaay more evidence for long term foetal damage from alcohol (FASD) most of which will occur within the first few weeks of foetal development - often BEFORE the woman knows she is pregnant so should we ban women from drinking ANY alcohol at all?

 

First, you're trying to turn two separate issues into a defense for the idea that women should be hauled into court concerning what they knew, when they knew it, etc. There is nothing even slightly legitimate about that.

As to your second, the Texas law that fetuses are people when it comes to murder was a totally political move, not based in any legitimate consideration. Murder law had already LONG considered the issue of murder victims being pregnant.

Pretending that is a new justification for MORE law today just isn't an argument.

 

Latest update on the story:

Judge Robert Shane Burns has dismissed the murder case against a woman who delivered a stillbirth after consuming methamphetamine, saying prosecutors failed to provide evidence that she took drugs knowing that it could kill her baby.

This decision took place in the Kings County Superior Court, in California, May 2021.

The dismissal, however, falls short of what many Pro-Choice advocates had wanted from the court: a clear ruling that that California's homicide law does not apply to pregnant women.

According to Becker's attorneys, she had to stay in jail for more than a year, unable to post $2 million bail, until she was transferred to a drug treatment facility earlier this year.


I suspect the judge may have felt that the amount of time she had already spent in jail was already enough punishment. The judge's decision doesn't clearly necessarily mean he didn't believe she is responsible for murdering her fetus, but he might just have been trying to protect her from what he felt would likely be excessive punishment.

 

There is also risk related to legally prescribed medications. I know quite a few women that stopped anti-depressants when they learned they were pregnant and all of them were beyond miserable throughout their respective pregnancies.

I just wish people would care about these people when they are detached from their mother's womb.

 

It is not just anti-depressants

https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au...-birth-defects#risk-factors-for-birth-defects

 

The case in the OP is not the only case like this

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...cy-miscarriage-corporate-drug-pushers-go-free

 

Of course. I wasn't trying to say it was *just* anti-depressants. Many, many medications cause problems for people who aren't with child. They create them that way so they can prescribe more drugs for the side effects of the other(s).

 

Not really

I remember reading a pharmaceutical textbook on the drug Largactil (Chlorpromazine hydrochloride). The comment read “if this could be broken in four different drugs it would be better. And that is some of the difficulty. One of the newer medications for type 2 diabetes has the side effect of nausea BUT this is causing weight loss so it is being used for that

 

I'm not sure what you are replying to with "not really".

True, there are many medications with different applications and some, like you mention, that give a side effect that leads to it being used for other health conditions.

I am a bit biased relative to modern medicine. I don't understand why they've made pregnancy into a medical condition when women have been giving birth without hospitals since the beginning of time. Sure, some pregnancies are high risk and need the extra monitoring but a healthy woman carrying a healthy fetus to term does not require medical intervention and/or hospitalization.

 

2 million bail seems excessive especially for case like this because it has no legal precedent

 

That was probably the point. I didn't read much about this case but it makes sense to make bail unreachable as she wouldn't have access to meth in prison. Inmates can usually get contraband into prisons to make money on the side but if she has never been to prison, those connections would need time to build and if she doesn't have someone sending her money regularly, it's even harder to obtain prohibited items.

 

Because humans are really really badly put together when it comes to birthing. Sure woman have been having babies under tress for hundreds of thousands of years and they have been dying there too. Maternal mortality is a real issue and the Caesarean section may date back to Ancient Rome but think of how desperate you have to be for that in the days before antibiotics and anaesthesia

 

I'm not sure that it's desperation that leads to not wanting interventions for childbirth. Yes, sanitation, lessened cross contamination and decreased mother and/or infant mortality have helped women around the world.

Yet, sometimes, as in the topic of this thread, that simply isn't enough to protect the life of a growing fetus. So, if we're going to pick and choose who isn't worthy of pregnancy because of their life choices, we shouldn't be singling out meth addiction.

What about smokers? My mother smoked from the time she left high until today. All four of us have asthma. She has no respiratory problems.

What about pregnant women that do porn and prostitute while pregnant?

What about women who are "breeders"?

What about women who are in emotionally and/or physically abusive relationships they refuse to leave?

What about women that drink excessively while pregnant leading to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome?

What about women who have already had other children taken away by Child Protective Services?

What about women involved with men who are sexual predators (and she knows it)?

What about women that make reckless decisions during their pregnancy (ie roller coasters, driving, whatever)?

And on and on.

Why are we looking at this specific situation instead of the whole picture about any and all risks an expectant mother could do that can cause her unborn baby to suffer? Do we just start locking them all up and throwing their babies into overcrowded orphanages or with anybody that will take them through foster care? And, if we can justify doing that, we have to accept that most of those babies will eventually be funneled through our prison system.

 

Animals that walk on all four have easier birthing process than human women. A human baby has to twist and turn a lot to make it through the birthing canal. A zoologist once explained it to me. Many animals give birth in less pain and with less complications than human women. The fact that we walk up right has moved our reproduction system and it’s placement, and four legged animals can’t have sex face to face. They have a shorter birth canal and I think it’s way less complicated.

 

She was taking methamphetamine so she did kill it. Murder might be a bit too much but reckless endangerment manslaughter criminally negligent homicide perhaps.