For those wondering why this is a safety issue, in many American states abortion or "fetal harm" is considered murder. You can be imprisoned, theoretically for life. This is of course a rapidly evolving area of law since the fall of Roe v. Wade. Having one's menstrual data available for subpoena is therefore quite a literal safety risk.
"At least 38 states authorize homicide charges for causing pregnancy loss"
As a clarification for the "I didn't do anything wrong, I have nothing to hide" crowd, most of the time when someone is pregnant and then suddenly not pregnant, the cause is a miscarriage. And most people would go see a doctor if there is a lot of pain or bleeding. An overzealous prosecutor (usually running for election) is going to make the claim that you went to a doctor and now you aren't pregnant, you must have made an abortion. And now you have to hire lawyers to argue in court. And all in a easily 3rd-party mass-suppeonable database. That's why this is such a big problem.
Yep now instead of menstration cycles and abortion, replace it with antisemitism or grass-eaters or any other political disposition. You may be getting denied jobs because of posts you made to an anonymous imageboard which you thought were anonymous, but something like your Grammarly extension sent all your typed text up the pipe and now the corporate-state squid knows you're a wrongthinker full of thoughtcrime.
Intel agents look for blackmail to gain leverage over targets. I wonder how many security cleared personnel are going to be vulnerable to Chinese and Iranian extortion, once a database run by one of the cloud-based cannabis CRM+POS companies gets leaked with all that customer and purchase info. I am seriously considering making a fake ID for pot shops, so they quit typing my name into their cloud-connected fucking databases!
Try replacing it with something that wasn't even a concern years ago but now is the hot topic. Various things go in and out of style. Those harmless pranks you did as a kid that everyone laughed at then are now immoral and enough to get you on.
I don't have a problem with this. If a child - even an unborn one - dies in mysterious circumstances, I would prefer the inconvenience of a fruitless investigation over the prospect of living in a society where we don't even care enough to ever be suspicious.
There is nothing mysterious about a miscarriage. They are common. According to the Mayo Clinic:
> Miscarriage is the sudden loss of a pregnancy before the 20th week. About 10% to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage. But the actual number is likely higher. This is because many miscarriages happen early on, before people realize they're pregnant.
Subjecting a person who is already upset about her miscarriage to a fruitless investigation is cruel and stupid; I’d prefer to live in a society where we understand that miscarriages happen as a part of nature and don’t need to further torment the people who suffer from them.
As I understand it, in this case, a witness saw a woman throwing a child's remains in a dumpster. After investigation, it was cleared as a miscarriage.
What would you prefer? We turn a blind eye to people disposing of bodies? Cops refuse to investigate such reports?
It sounds like everything worked as intended here. Of course it's unfortunate for the innocent woman involved, but this is clearly not a witchhunt.
This line of discussion inevitably boils down to what one's definition of a human life is and whether a fetus at a particular stage of development meets that definition.
Let's not have that discussion here on HN. It's not going to be fruitful.
For a conviction, yes, the burden of proof is on the prosecution. But in the meantime, you have to pay for a lawyer, and you will be sitting in jail for a year because they don't give bail for murderers. And as for the lawyer bills, the court doesn't refund you the money when you are found innocent, and it isn't going to be cheap, not for murder.
So you want the state to investigate every single miscarriage?
Where did "mysterious circumstances" come from? I didn't see it mentioned anywhere in this thread...
Do you think a miscarriage is a "mysterious circumstance"? I can only assume so, given your response. That seems like the result of what could only be tremendous ignorance.
It's not a strawman. You said "mysterious circumstances" when we are talking about miscarriages. Do you think they are the same or not? It's a very simple question.
>Do you not want police to investigate reports of someone disposing of human remains in a dumpster?
I find the "shouldn't we investigate dumping possible human remains into a dumpster?" question to be a red herring at best but: yes, sure, we should. I do not find it relevant to menstruation data captured by an application. If we have the remains, we know the age of the fetus or baby, and can prove whether a particular suspect is the mother of that fetus or baby.
Obviously nobody's being investigated for routine miscarriages.
It is absolutely not at all obvious to me that this will continue to be the case, especially if the data to do so exists -- which is the central point of this discussion about why women would rightfully view the sharing of their menstrual data as a potential safety risk.
In fact the opposite is much more "obvious" to me: I think a lot of people in America (and elsewhere) would absolutely support such a thing.
> State law does not require a woman to notify authorities when she miscarries, but Truman said that women who miscarry in West Virginia can protect themselves against potential criminal charges by reporting the miscarriage to local law enforcement.
>
> “Call your doctor. Call law enforcement, or 911, and just say, ‘I miscarried. I want you to know,'” advised Truman.
Now, in fairness, the state's association of prosecutors has clarified that this is not official policy and that the association as a whole does not support it. But it's definitely not out of the realm of possibility.
> Obviously nobody's being investigated for routine miscarriages.
Not obvious that this will remain the case. These advocates did not just disappear once they achieved their goal of overturning RvW. They are working towards their next milestones. I guarantee you there are at least politically active citizens in all 50 states who would support criminalizing routine miscarriage, if not actual elected officials working towards it, and speaking publicly about it.
> Obviously nobody's being investigated for routine miscarriages.
Sorry, how does a third party know the miscarriage was "routine?" What is a non-routine miscarriage? Why would it be criminal, it's still a miscarriage? What's the suspicion?
The article you refer to, the investigation happened, not because there was a miscarriage, but because a body was seen being dumped...
Maybe it was the mistake of the other poster for sharing that link, but I do not see what it has to do with your point at all. Either miscarriages are illegal or not... you said they should be investigated when they are "mysterious circumstances" and I am repeatedly asking you to explain when a miscarriage is a mysterious circumstance? Even more so, when is it such that it has any relevancy to this discussion about the state tracking a woman's pregnancy through digital data.
>Oh, check out the links that started this discussion. tldr- A woman was seen disposing of a baby's body in a dumpster, prompting an investigation. She was ultimately cleared as it was indeed a miscarriage.
What about all the other incidents in the other article besides the one you decided to talk about because you are not willing to state whether or not you think a miscarriage is a "mysterious circumstance?" Which seems like a very straightforward question and I do not understand your unwillingness to provide a response when your previous posts make it very unclear as to whether or not you think a miscarriage is a normal occurrence.
>I do not understand your unwillingness to provide a response ... as to whether or not you think a miscarriage is a normal occurrence
Why would I? It's such a rude question. We are discussing the nuances of suspicious "miscarriages" that appear to be home abortions constituting valid reason for investigation and possible prosecution, and you are hung up on ridiculous strawmen as if you're the only person who understands the issue so everybody else who disagrees must be an uninformed sociopath. It's disrespectful and immature. Yes, I have the basic concepts of mammalian biology well understood. And this will be my signoff to you and this discussion.
> We are discussing the nuances of suspicious "miscarriages" that appear to be home abortions constituting valid reason for investigation and possible prosecution
No. We weren't. We were talking about miscarriages being tracked through these kinds of apps. You selected one of over 20 examples provided by one poster.
> you are hung up on ridiculous strawmen as if you're the only person who understands the issue so everybody else who disagrees must be an uninformed sociopath
It was your strawman. You talked about "suspicious miscarriages" or whatever the exact term was. Something you made up on your own.
> Yes, I have the basic concepts of mammalian biology well understood
That's actually not clear at all as evidenced by the several other posters that took the same exact issue with your bizarre characterizations. But great job making yourself into some sort of victim here!
You should clarify that these are women who deliberately induce a miscarriage (ie. a home abortion) or whose extraordinarily reckless and dangerous behaviours result in a miscarriage that may or may not have been deliberately induced, but either way are unconscionable and directly responsible for the child's death. You don't do your cause any favours when you present these cases as "miscarriages", knowing full well that many people perceive this as the unfortunate loss of a child by a conscientious and responsible expectant mother.
Every single of the six links you provided are about miscarriages and not abortions. Either I don’t understand something medical (not a doctor), or you’re mixing things to derail a conversation (dishonestly or unintentionally). Whether those miscarriages were natural or a result of human malice, is an absolutely separate discussion.
How does all that prove an original point that an abortion can get a woman to prison?
I agree that overreach of prosecution is possible (as with many other laws), but I disagree that a fix for bad laws or bad legal process is “make it easier for people to break laws and not get caught, and to cooperate discreetly on breaking laws”
It turned out that she was put in jail mistakenly for a couple of days — and is getting up to $1M compensation for the judicial mistake. How is that “women get imprisoned for abortion”? Something that looks good in a clickbait title, but actually shows proper functioning of legal system instead.
Because she was literally put in jail after being charged with murder for having an abortion. Full stop.
The fact that the prosecutors got the facts wrong and still threw her in jail is actually evidence that the legal system is not functioning properly. In a properly functioning legal system, she wouldn't have been arrested in the first place, but that's a different conversation.
it was overturned, but at least one judge believed that imprisonment was warranted and issued his verdict accordingly. and many politicians believe that too and push for laws to that effect.
Purvi Patel gave birth to a 5.5—6 months baby, sealed it in a plastic bag, and threw it in a trash container! I guess we could agree to disagree whether at least some jail time was warranted in this case.
i didn't see any of those details in the article, and even one of the linked ones says that it was under dispute whether the baby was born alive or could have survived. if in doubt...
the real problem is our treatment of these issues as a society globally.
judging people for having children out of wedlock. not educating them in ways that would give them the strength to avoid that. judging their parents. parents judging their children, instead of forgiving them and supporting them. society not supporting single parents. and don't use religion as an excuse. any religion that supports judging someone for this is wrong or misunderstood.
the article i read claimed that it was under dispute whether the baby was alive. if in doubt...
i just wrote about this in response to the sibling comment, but let me add this:
the problem is lack of compassion for others. this women was under distress. she had no support from her family or from anyone else in society. this was not her failing. this is ours!
if we would actually support women in such a situation, then this would not even have happened. her actions are symptom of how we treat others, of our judgement and our lack of support.
these problems will never go away until we change that.
"At least 38 states authorize homicide charges for causing pregnancy loss"
https://www.law.cuny.edu/academics/clinical-programs/hrgj/pr...