Tomorrow I will find myself in the interesting position of being a pregnant woman advocating against a bill seeking to create a new crime of an offense against an "unborn child." And, I will do so willingly, passionately and completely convinced that our position supports both good public policy and core constitional rights.
Most of the issues we work on at the ACLU of MAINE are emotional and personal, but the bills that impact a women's right to make decisions about her own reproductive health are some of the most contentious we face. Honestly, I have wondered from time to time over the years whether my opinion about women's privacy rights would shift if I ever found myself pregnant or a mother.
But now that I am in just such a position, I have discovered that my committment to women's privacy rights and reproductive decisionmaking has, if anything, grown even stronger. This is simply not an appropriate place for government regulation or criminal penalty. And using violence against women as a rouse within which to promote anti-abortion rhetoric and destructive laws is both shameful and will serve only to harm the women in our community .
That's because though it mascarades as a law to protect pregnant women from violence, LD 1463, "An Act Regarding Offenses Against an Unborn Child" is a clear attempt to separate a woman from her fetus in the eyes of the law, undermine her constitutionally guaranteed rights, and does nothing to further protect pregnant women or deter assaults against them.
Such separation is simply the first step toward eroding a woman's right to determine the fate of her own pregnancy and to direct the course of her own health care. In other states, laws such as LD 1463 have been cited as support for arresting pregnant women for a variety of actions – legal and illegal – including drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence perpetrated on the woman, attempted suicide, perceptions about her intentions regarding her pregnancy, and exercising her right to make informed medical decisions about her pregnancy.
Women in Maine who are victims of domestic violence deserve better. We can protect our mothers, wives, sisters and daughters in a better way - without allowing victims of violent crime to be used as political pawns.
Please urge members of Maine's Criminal Justice Committee to reject LD 1463 and instead seek real ways to help solve the problem of violence against women.
