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This site is a member of WebRing. To browse visit here. Saturday, January 08, 2005 The crime of being a woman in Virginia Kate wants to move to Maine when we retire. With 29 acres of paid-up property, I would just as soon stay in Virginia. I may have to change my mind. John Cosgrove, a Republican state representative from Chesapeake, has introduced legislation to require that any woman who miscarries, regardless of how far along the pregnancy is, must report the miscarriage to local law enforcement personnel within 12 hours, or face up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine. Is this man NUTS? I'm not given to hyperbole or shouting, but I think I'm going to shout at John Cosgrove's office telephone. "MR. COSGROVE, I HAD A MISCARRIAGE AT ABOUT SIX WEEKS, AND IF YOU THINK MY MIND WAS ON REPORTING THAT TO THE POLICE, INSTEAD OF GRIEVING FOR THE CHILD I LOST, YOU CAN GO STRAIGHT TO FUCKING HELL!" No, that didn't make me feel any better at all. And of course, as far as Virginia is concerned, it won't help to go anywhere else. The indignantly righteous anti-abortionists who are pushing this kind of legislation live in Maine too. The irony is that I'm strongly anti-abortion myself, while at the same time being just as strongly pro-choice. Meaning I grieve for every child who doesn't reach viable infancy in the arms of loving parents and a home prepared to care for it. I also know how many of those babies would have met poverty, indifference, barbaric abuse, lack of decent medical care, over-crowded and mediocre schools, and no jobs when they were old enough to seek them. If the anti-abortionists want to see fewer abortions, they need to teach children HOW NOT TO GET PREGNANT! Damn, I'm shouting again. Sometimes this seems like not just a losing battle, but one that was already lost a long time ago, with a few crazy people still firing off their guns. Here is the information a woman would have to provide to law enforcement when she reported a miscarriage:place of occurrence usual residence of patient (mother) full maiden name of patient medical record number and social security number of patient Hispanic origin, if any, and race of patient age of patient education of patient sex of fetus patient married to father previous deliveries to patient single or plural delivery and order of plural delivery date of delivery date of last normal menses and physician's estimate of gestation weight of fetus in grams month of pregnancy care began (sic) number of prenatal visits when fetus died congenital malformations, if any events of labor and delivery medical history for this pregnancy other history for this pregnancy obstetric procedures and method of delivery autopsy medical certification f cause of spontaneous fetal death signature of attending physician or medical examiner including title, address and date signed method of disposal of fetus signature and address of funeral director or hospital representative date received by registrar registrar's signature registration area and report numbers. Besides the fact that many of these questions are unforgiveably intrusive (not to mention just plain stupid), I can just see the pole-axed expression of the typical 911 operator if someone did call to provide such information. Looking at the questions, it's easy to see that many of them are significant to medical personnel in the aggregate; i.e. as demographic information about the whole mass of women in Virginia who suffer miscarriages. Most of what we know about miscarriages has come from the study of such accumulated data. But demographic information is anonymous. Individuals' names and personal details are not even included in databases, much less revealed to researchers. Police reports, on the other hand, tend to be detailed, inclusive, and not very private. What this really boils down to is whether women are citizens, with all the rights that accrue to citizenship in the United States (not many, granted, anymore), or chattel property, subject to the whims of the men who control their lives. I don't ordinarily see women's rights as solely a gender conflict, but it's hard to find any other purpose here. I see from other blogs that I have just read that Cosgrove has backed down from the original language of the bill. He claims he never meant to require the reporting of miscarriages, only live births in which the woman had no medical attention. He blames the Chesapeake Police Department, in effect, for requesting such a bill. He calls many of those who emailed his office "abusive, condescending and mean-spirited." Well, guess what, Mr. Cosgrove? Your proposed legislation was abusive, condescending and evil. It was also a sloppy piece of legislation if, as I suspect, you took a standard reporting form from the state registrar's office and appended it to some vague, ambiguous and wide-ranging language about products of conception. But this incident does prove that citizen action works. Unfortunately, it also demonstrates to the other side exactly what level of opposition they have to deal with, and possibly also the identities of many of the opposers. I will use my real name and my personal email address when I write to John Cosgrove's office, as I still intend to do, with the assumption that my name is going to end up in someone's database. I'm tired of being anonymous. Three years ago, I was a quiet grandma, wanting nothing more than to get through the day without offending anyone. Two years ago I became politically aware enough to question some things I didn't like. Last year I was an activist. Today I get in people's faces and tell them what I think. I don't really have any right to do this. I'm the sole caregiver for a completely disabled relative, and a surrogate parent for my grandson. I have no right to jeopardize their well-being by speaking out. But my God! at what point do you say enough? [EDIT] - I should have credited Lex Alexander for alerting me to this. The issue has been taken up, I understand, by such powerhouse bloggers as DailyKos and Atrios, but I saw it first at Blog on the Run. I should also add that John Cosgrove authored the proposed amendment to Virginia's constitution to define marriage as being only between a man and a woman. Kind of tell you where he stands on civil rights. posted by Liz @ 1:18 PM | The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section RSS Feed PERSONAL Send email toliz at life-as-a-spectator-sport.com Home I'm a mother, grandmother, a computer professional, Democrat, Christian. I welcome politely worded comments and email, my spam filter throws the rest away, so don't bother to flame me WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT' "If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart. 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Kate wants to move to Maine when we retire. With 29 acres of paid-up property, I would just as soon stay in Virginia. I may have to change my mind. John Cosgrove, a Republican state representative from Chesapeake, has introduced legislation to require that any woman who miscarries, regardless of how far along the pregnancy is, must report the miscarriage to local law enforcement personnel within 12 hours, or face up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine. Is this man NUTS? I'm not given to hyperbole or shouting, but I think I'm going to shout at John Cosgrove's office telephone. "MR. COSGROVE, I HAD A MISCARRIAGE AT ABOUT SIX WEEKS, AND IF YOU THINK MY MIND WAS ON REPORTING THAT TO THE POLICE, INSTEAD OF GRIEVING FOR THE CHILD I LOST, YOU CAN GO STRAIGHT TO FUCKING HELL!" No, that didn't make me feel any better at all. And of course, as far as Virginia is concerned, it won't help to go anywhere else. The indignantly righteous anti-abortionists who are pushing this kind of legislation live in Maine too. The irony is that I'm strongly anti-abortion myself, while at the same time being just as strongly pro-choice. Meaning I grieve for every child who doesn't reach viable infancy in the arms of loving parents and a home prepared to care for it. I also know how many of those babies would have met poverty, indifference, barbaric abuse, lack of decent medical care, over-crowded and mediocre schools, and no jobs when they were old enough to seek them. If the anti-abortionists want to see fewer abortions, they need to teach children HOW NOT TO GET PREGNANT! Damn, I'm shouting again. Sometimes this seems like not just a losing battle, but one that was already lost a long time ago, with a few crazy people still firing off their guns. Here is the information a woman would have to provide to law enforcement when she reported a miscarriage:place of occurrence usual residence of patient (mother) full maiden name of patient medical record number and social security number of patient Hispanic origin, if any, and race of patient age of patient education of patient sex of fetus patient married to father previous deliveries to patient single or plural delivery and order of plural delivery date of delivery date of last normal menses and physician's estimate of gestation weight of fetus in grams month of pregnancy care began (sic) number of prenatal visits when fetus died congenital malformations, if any events of labor and delivery medical history for this pregnancy other history for this pregnancy obstetric procedures and method of delivery autopsy medical certification f cause of spontaneous fetal death signature of attending physician or medical examiner including title, address and date signed method of disposal of fetus signature and address of funeral director or hospital representative date received by registrar registrar's signature registration area and report numbers. Besides the fact that many of these questions are unforgiveably intrusive (not to mention just plain stupid), I can just see the pole-axed expression of the typical 911 operator if someone did call to provide such information. Looking at the questions, it's easy to see that many of them are significant to medical personnel in the aggregate; i.e. as demographic information about the whole mass of women in Virginia who suffer miscarriages. Most of what we know about miscarriages has come from the study of such accumulated data. But demographic information is anonymous. Individuals' names and personal details are not even included in databases, much less revealed to researchers. Police reports, on the other hand, tend to be detailed, inclusive, and not very private. What this really boils down to is whether women are citizens, with all the rights that accrue to citizenship in the United States (not many, granted, anymore), or chattel property, subject to the whims of the men who control their lives. I don't ordinarily see women's rights as solely a gender conflict, but it's hard to find any other purpose here. I see from other blogs that I have just read that Cosgrove has backed down from the original language of the bill. He claims he never meant to require the reporting of miscarriages, only live births in which the woman had no medical attention. He blames the Chesapeake Police Department, in effect, for requesting such a bill. He calls many of those who emailed his office "abusive, condescending and mean-spirited." Well, guess what, Mr. Cosgrove? Your proposed legislation was abusive, condescending and evil. It was also a sloppy piece of legislation if, as I suspect, you took a standard reporting form from the state registrar's office and appended it to some vague, ambiguous and wide-ranging language about products of conception. But this incident does prove that citizen action works. Unfortunately, it also demonstrates to the other side exactly what level of opposition they have to deal with, and possibly also the identities of many of the opposers. I will use my real name and my personal email address when I write to John Cosgrove's office, as I still intend to do, with the assumption that my name is going to end up in someone's database. I'm tired of being anonymous. Three years ago, I was a quiet grandma, wanting nothing more than to get through the day without offending anyone. Two years ago I became politically aware enough to question some things I didn't like. Last year I was an activist. Today I get in people's faces and tell them what I think. I don't really have any right to do this. I'm the sole caregiver for a completely disabled relative, and a surrogate parent for my grandson. I have no right to jeopardize their well-being by speaking out. But my God! at what point do you say enough? [EDIT] - I should have credited Lex Alexander for alerting me to this. The issue has been taken up, I understand, by such powerhouse bloggers as DailyKos and Atrios, but I saw it first at Blog on the Run. I should also add that John Cosgrove authored the proposed amendment to Virginia's constitution to define marriage as being only between a man and a woman. Kind of tell you where he stands on civil rights.
The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section
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PERSONAL
WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT'
"If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart.
THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME
Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3
KNITTING BLOGS
Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits
FINISHED PROJECTS
SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE
POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES
BOOKS I'M READING
How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising
ARCHIVES
February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002
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