Legislative Sentry: HB1677 - Have Miscarriage, Go to Jail?
UPDATE: If you are visiting this link for the first time, please read this clarification and this update before contacting Delegate Cosgrove, whose office has been inundated by emails. The email deluge is a Good Thing, IMO, but only if the emails themselves are based on a full understanding of his proposed legislation. So please read before you rant! 
And thanks for caring enough to rant, to act, to inform yourselves, to get involved. I’m in awe.
The update includes the text of the email that Delegate Cosgrove asked me to share with readers.
Imagine the following scenario.
You are at home alone at 8:00 on a Friday night. You are 8 weeks pregnant. You are excited about the pregnancy, but being cautious, you haven’t told anyone about it yet except your partner, your best friend, your parents, and your doctor.
All of a sudden, you begin to experience heavy cramping. Bleeding ensues. You realize with shock and sadness that you are probably experiencing a miscarriage. You leave a message with your doctor’s service. The on-call doctor calls back, offers sympathies, and advises taking pain medication or going to the hospital if the bleeding gets worse. She offers you the next available appointment for a follow-up exam - Monday at 3PM. You accept. You are overwhelmed with grief and surprised by the intensity of physical pain involved. You call your partner and ask him to come home from his “boys night outâ€, sparing him the reason over the phone. You call your best friend. She offers to come over immediately and make you cocoa. You cry.
You decide not to tell your parents yet; let them sleep through the night before delivering the terrible news. Your partner comes home and you break the sad news to him. He holds you on the couch and you both cry together. Your best friend comes over with cocoa. You cry some more. Over the next few hours, you suffer pain, cramping, and intermittent bleeding. Exhausted, you finally fall asleep in your partner’s arms around 4 AM. You sleep until noon, and then gird yourself for the difficult call to your parents, who were so eagerly anticipating their first grandchild.
Guess what? You just earned yourself up to 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine. Why? Because you failed to call the cops and report your miscarriage within 12 hours.
True? Not yet. But if Delegate John Cosgrove (R-78) has his way, HB1677 will become law in a few short months, and this scenario will be reality for many women in Virginia.
Incredulous? Outraged? Read on below the jump for more information on this odious bill.
HB1677, “Report of Fetal Death by mother, penaltyâ€
It sounds preposterous to talk about criminalizing women who suffer miscarriages, but one Virginia legislator is proposing just that. HB1677, “Report of Fetal Death by mother, penalty†is a bill introduced by John A. Cosgrove (R) of Chesapeake. Cosgrove’s bill requires any woman who experiences “fetal death†without a doctor’s assistance to report this to the local law-enforcement agency within twelve hours of the miscarriage. Failure to do so is punishable as a Class 1 Misdemeanor.
Background: Reporting of Fetal Deaths
Almost all states mandate reporting of fetal deaths to vital statistics bureaus. These statistics are then collected nationally by the CDC. In most states, health care providers must provide statistics on fetal deaths after 20 weeks gestation (or at a certain fetal weight approximating 20 weeks gestation). Virginia is one of only 7 states, however, that mandate the reporting of deaths of all “products of conception†regardless of gestational age. This includes both spontaneous losses of pregnancy and induced terminations of pregnancy, though the required data fields are different for abortions.
In Virginia, all losses of pregnancy must be reported by health care providers according to current law. The reality, though, is that countless women experience spontaneous abortions in the first few gestational weeks without even being aware of pregnancy, so not all pregnancies of early gestational age are reported. Women who experience miscarriages at home without a doctor’s care may not even think to inform their doctors, especially if the pregnancy is so early that they have not yet even sought prenatal care. Until this bill, though, no one has suggested it was in the interest of the Commonwealth of Virginia to track down these unreported losses of “products of conception”.
The Bill: text
When a fetal death occurs without medical attendance, it shall be the woman’s responsibility to report the death to the law-enforcement agency in the jurisdiction of which the delivery occurs within 12 hours after the delivery. A violation of this section shall be punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor.