Another US state has announced that women who suffer a miscarriage could be investigated under new anti-abortion laws.
West Virginia already has a full abortion ban in effect – illegal in all cases except rape or incest, fatal abnormalities and when the mother’s life is at risk – but now, those who miscarry could face consequences.
Attorney Tom Truman said women who miscarry can be prosecuted if they’re found to have buried, flushed, or hidden evidence of their miscarriage.
West Virginia state code does restrict a woman from facing criminal charges for her own abortion, but levying charges is up to individual prosecutors.
And according to Truman, a ‘number’ of prosecutors have discussed their willingness to file charges against women who may have miscarried, by using a law pertaining to human remains disposal.
‘The kind of criminal jeopardy you face is going to depend on a lot of factors. What was your intent? What did you do? How late were you in your pregnancy?’ Truman said.
‘Were you trying to hide something, were you just so emotionally distraught you couldn’t do anything else?
‘If you were relieved, and you had been telling people, ‘I’d rather get run over by a bus than have this baby,’ that may play into law enforcement’s thinking, too,’ he added.
Truman said women who miscarry should call their ‘doctor, law enforcement or 911’ to report the miscarriage to avoid criminal charges.
After the Supreme Court decided to overturn Roe v Wade in 2022, abortion access in the United States has significantly worsened.
Which states can prosecute for miscarriages?
Several states have prosecuted women for miscarriages or stillbirths.
They include: South Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, Texas, California, Mississippi, and Ohio. It appears West Virginia has joined the ranks as well.
Though California has since passed laws banning criminal charges and investigations of pregnancy loss, it previously jailed two women for stillbirths.
A Texas woman was forced to carry her dead fetus in her womb for two weeks after it was discovered she had miscarried.
Stell’s situation went from bad to worse when she asked her doctor to perform a standard surgery to remove the fetal remains, and her doctor refused.
In Georgia, a pregnant woman is being kept alive, despite being brain-dead, to carry her baby to term.
Adriana Smith, 30, was around nine weeks pregnant in February when she began experiencing intense headaches, which her local hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, brushed off.
The morning after her hospital visit, Smith was found gurgling and struggling to breathe by her boyfriend and rushed to the hospital, where she was declared brain dead.
In 2022, Georgia’s Supreme Court reinstated a ban on abortions after six weeks of gestation, only three weeks of pregnancy.
This ban means that Smith’s family has been forced to keep their daughter on life support until her child is born.
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