The US ruling class is continuing to wage a battle over control of women's reproductive organs, and it's packing a good punch. Two major pieces of legislation have seriously challenged Roe vs Wade — the 1973 US Supreme Court ruling which gave women the right to first and second trimester abortions.
Last November, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act 2003 was passed by the US Congress — legislating fines and prison sentences for doctors who perform certain abortion procedures. This deceptively named law (there is no such medical terminology as "partial-birth abortion") is the first federal law to criminalise any medical procedure.
In mid-February, using the new law, the US government began seizing women's medical records from hospitals to see if they had the "right" abortion procedure.
A second piece of federal anti-choice legislation was passed by Congress in late February. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act argues that foetuses are separate persons under the law, with rights independent of the pregnant woman. If foetuses are "legal persons", pregnant women can be arrested and jailed as criminals if any aspect of their lives is deemed to pose a risk to their foetus' health.
In 1984 South Carolina adopted the first "foetal rights" law. This allows for someone who causes the death of a foetus by assaulting a pregnant woman to be prosecuted for murder.
The National Advocates for Pregnant Women have pointed out that since 1984, 50 to 100 women in South Carolina have been arrested based on claims of harming foetal "personhood", but only one man has been charged with this crime. Even some women who gave birth to healthy babies were given prison sentences of up to 10 years on charges of putting their pregnancies at risk.
On March 11, under similar Utah state law, 28-year-old Melissa Ann Rowland was charged by the Salt Lake City district attorney's office with murder after refusing a caesarean section. On January 13, Rowland had given birth to twins, one of which had been stillborn, while the other, a girl, lived and has since been adopted.
in the name of "foetal rights, in 1987, Angela Carder, a 27-year-old pregnant woman, was forced by doctors at the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, DC, to undergo a caesarean that resulted in both her and her foetus' death.
In 2001, Regina McKnight, an African American, became the first woman in US history to be convicted of homicide by child abuse based on the fact that she suffered a still-birth. This pregnancy loss was blamed on her use of illegal drugs.
Other US black women have been targeted for criminal investigation and arrest based on the argument that the foetus is a person and the women's drug problems during pregnancy are a form of child abuse.
Feminist activists are punching back against the attacks on women's rights. On April 25, pro-choice organisations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, National Organisation for Women, Advocates for Pregnant Women and Black Women's Health Imperative will be marching in Washington to demand choice, justice, health, and access to abortion and family planning. Organisers expect tens of thousands of women and their supporters to participate.
The right to choose whether and where to have a child is fundamental to women's freedom. The choice to abort a pregnancy with guaranteed privacy, and the right to refuse particular medical treatment is a requirement of that freedom.
[For information on the April 25 March for Women's Lives visit <http://www.marchforwomen.org>.]
Rachel Evans
From Green Left Weekly, March 24, 2004.
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