Holistic Wisdom Corporation

Go To Jail For A Miscarriage?
Report of Fetal Death by Mother Penalty

12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine for failing to contact the police to report a miscarriage within 12 hours is what Delegate John A. Cosgrove (R) of Chesapeake has in mind for a law (HB1677) that could be in effect in a few short months in Virginia. Failure to do so will be as punishable as a Class 1 Misdemeanor.

Cosgrove’s bill requires any woman who experiences “fetal death” without a doctor’s assistance to report this to the local law-enforcement agency within twelve hours of the miscarriage.

Almost all states mandate reporting of fetal deaths to vital statistics bureaus. These statistics are then collected nationally by the CDC. In most states, health care providers must provide statistics on fetal deaths after 20 weeks gestation (or at a certain fetal weight approximating 20 weeks gestation). Virginia is one of only 7 states, however, that mandate the reporting of deaths of all “products of conception” regardless of gestational age.

This includes both spontaneous losses of pregnancy and induced terminations of pregnancy, though the required data fields are different for abortions. In Virginia, all losses of pregnancy must be reported by health care providers according to current law. The reality, though, is that countless women experience spontaneous abortions in the first few gestational weeks without even being aware of pregnancy, so not all pregnancies of early gestational age are reported.

Women who experience miscarriages at home without a doctor’s care may not even think to inform their doctors, especially if the pregnancy is so early that they have not yet even sought prenatal care.

Until this bill, though, no one has suggested it was in the interest of the Commonwealth of Virginia to track down these unreported losses of "products of conception".

The Bill proposed states that when a fetal death occurs without medical attendance, it shall be the woman's responsibility to report the death to the law-enforcement agency in the jurisdiction of which the delivery occurs within 12 hours after the delivery. A violation of this section shall be punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor. This bill proposes that a woman report a LOSS of a pregnancy to the Commonwealth, whatever the gestational age of the embryo/fetus.

Furthermore, this bill means that a woman who experiences a spontaneous loss of pregnancy will have her privacy violated significantly more than if she had chosen an abortion. Though Virginia requires that induced terminations of pregnancy be reported, those reporting forms require only a “patient number” and information on the procedure.

The “report of fetal death” asks for the woman’s full name, her history of prenatal care, her marital status, her education history, her previous deliveries (if any), and a number of other very intrusive data items.

If the miscarriage occurred under a physician’s care, all of this information would be provided by the physician out of the patient’s medical records. Physicians and/or funeral directors are given 24 hours to file this report. Delegate Cosgrove’s bill gives women who experience miscarriage without a doctor only 12 hours to report, adding insult to injury.

Since the 100-member Virginia House of Delegates is dominated by over 60 Republicans, it will take a wide public awareness campaign to defeat this bill. It has become too easy for the Republicans in the Virginia legislature to sneak through bills like this one, and the most potent weapon available for defeating this bill is awareness.