News

28307 readers

3680 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

224

These States Have Investigated Miscarriages and Stillbirths as Crimes (www.themarshallproject.org)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Nationally, federal data shows that about 20% of pregnancies end in a loss, but only a small number are investigated as crimes. In several states, a positive drug test after a pregnancy loss can result in criminal charges for the mother, and even prison time.

Prosecutions related to pregnancy appear to have increased since the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, according to Pregnancy Justice, a nonprofit that advocates for the legal rights of pregnant people. In the first year after the Dobbs decision — from June 2022 to June 2023 — there were at least 210 pregnancy-related prosecutions, researchers for the group found.

Here are some states where miscarriages and stillbirths have been investigated by the criminal legal system in recent years:

Alabama

Arkansas

California

Georgia

Ohio

Oklahoma

South Carolina

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250402115455/https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/04/02/law-pregnancy-california-ohio-georgia-alabama

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The California cases were interesting, because at first I was almost inclined to agree with the prosecution, it seemed like blatant negligence. That being said, these people were clearly unwell, punishing them for the horrors brought forth by their poor decisions seems gratuitous. I think it would easily be a slippery slope without the sweeping ban that has been put in place on that.

Punishments also do not prevent or deter these things from happening in the first place, IMO. Investing in things like education and making healthcare and treatment accessible do.

I mean, even from a fiscally conservative standpoint, on paper it is substantially cheaper to rehabilitate people than it is to house them in a jail or prison. Tax payer funded slave labor sounds pretty good in comparison when you’re not paying taxes I guess.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

That being said, these people were clearly unwell, punishing them for the horrors brought forth by their poor decisions seems gratuitous.

Prostitution and sex trafficking are also pretty common among substance using women. The lower rate of homelessness among women is mostly just because a brothel has a roof. If we were just housing and feeding them in livable conditions and having them attend outpatient treatment while offering birth control you wouldn't see this nearly as much. Birth control is pretty critical to giving a woman the immediate safety needed to exit any kind of abusive relationship whether it's a domestic partner or a pimp / madam. Food and housing don't hurt either, and if you can get them to break the addiction and not need drug money you've done pretty much everything possible to help them break the cycle. It's actually pretty rewarding to see how many people can figure it out with the right supports in place.

Oh this reminded me of this short (trigger warning for extremely dark / gross nurse humor).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Do you have some links to the California cases? Not doubting you, just curious about the details you came across.