Utah’s new law: miscarriages are homicide

The Utah state legislation has just passed a bill making women who have an “intentional or knowing” miscarriage guilty of committing criminal homicide.

You did not read that incorrectly. Under this new law, any pregnant woman who smokes, has a few cocktails, takes the wrong herb, works too hard, or lives a stressful life which results in a miscarriage is now a murderer as long as someone is willing to prosecute.

Utah HB 462, or the “Miscarriage Bill,” was authored by Republican State Representative Carl D Wimmer and signed into law by governor Gary Herbert in early March. In a stunning show of legislative hatred for women, the votes in the Utah House were 59-12 and 24-4 in the Senate. The bill stipulates that any form of abortion that is not “carried out by a physician or through a substance used under the direction of a physician,” including miscarriage, to be illegal. Additionally, while Utah law formerly would only criminalize those who offered “illegal abortion” services, the bill removes immunity for the women who seek those services.

The situation is even bleaker due to that fact that Utah state law already requires those seeking legal abortions to undergo a 24 hour waiting period, notify and acquire consent from their parents if they’re a minor, and be subject to state-directed counseling which, if you couldn’t tell by the legislative climate, is staunchly anti-abortion. As for the cost of legal abortion, state funding is only accessible in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormality, or threat to the woman’s life or physical health.

A final fact that turns this legislative whirlwind of insanity into a full-blown dystopian nightmare for women: Utah, a state which covers over 82,000 square miles and has a population of just under three million, has only one legal abortion provider.