Last month, Utah sought to criminalize a woman’s “reckless act” that led to miscarriage. Now the governor has signed a bill designating “intentional or knowing” miscarriage as criminal homicide — which really isn’t much better.
Utah HB 462, which Gov. Gary Herbert signed Monday, stipulates that a woman can be charged with homicide for “the death of her unborn child” unless that death qualifies as a legal abortion, defined as “a medical procedure carried out by a physician or through a substance used under the direction of a physician.” In response to criticisms that the original bill could have sent a woman to prison for life for staying in an abusive relationship or falling down the stairs, legislators added the caveats that a woman may not be prosecuted if the death of her fetus “is caused by a criminally negligent or reckless act of the woman” or “is not caused by an intentional or knowing act of the woman.” So now a woman has to intentionally induce her own miscarriage in order to go to prison.
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