PUBLISHER'S NOTE: In recent years, I have taken on the theme of 'criminalizing reproduction' - a natural theme for a Blog concerned with flawed science in its myriad forms - as I am utterly appalled by the current movement in the United States (and some other countries) emboldened by the overturning of Roe Versus Wade, towards imprisoning and conducting surveillance on women and their physicians and others who help them secure a safe abortion, on the basis of sham science (or any other basis). I can’t remember the source, but agree totally with the sentiment that control over their reproductive lives is far too important to women in America - or anywhere else - so they can participate equally in the economic and social life of their nations without fear for loss their freedom at the hands of political opportunists and fanatics. (Far too many of those those around these days.) '
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
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POST: "Stop Turning Women’s Bodies Into Crime Scenes, by Jessica Valenti and Kylie Cheung, published on 'Abortion, Every Day,' on December 3, 2025.
GIST: Want to know what abortion rights leadership looks like? Check out Wisconsin Sen. Kelda Roys, who is introducing legislation to protect women from pregnancy-related prosecutions.
To our knowledge, the Pregnancy Loss Protection Act is the first-ever pregnancy decriminalization bill.1
It would bar law enforcement from investigating or prosecuting abortion, miscarriage, stillbirth, or any pregnancy outcome that doesn’t result in a live birth.
It would also ensure women can’t be held civilly liable or discriminated against because of how a pregnancy ends.
Roys—who is running for governor—told Abortion, Every Day that she’s bringing the bill to stop our bodies from being “turned into crime scenes.”
When you’re having the worst day of your life, she said, police shouldn’t be “figuring out a way to arrest you instead of taking you to a hospital.”
Since the end of Roe, hundreds of women have been arrested over their pregnancy outcomes—like Brittany Watts in Ohio, charged with ‘abuse of a corpse’ for flushing her miscarriage.
Or the young Georgia woman charged with ‘concealing a death’ after placing her fetal remains in the trash.
A woman in Texas was jailed for five months after miscarrying in a public restroom; and in South Carolina, cops arrested a woman they claimed threw her “newborn” in a dumpster.
The truth? She miscarried.
It’s clear that Roys has been paying attention to these arrests and how, exactly, they happen: some of the most common pregnancy-related charges are crimes like ‘abuse of a corpse’ or ‘abandoning a dead body’—so the Pregnancy Loss Protection Act explicitly states that a “‘corpse’ does not include fetal tissue.”
That one definition can have enormous impact.
The timing for the bill also couldn’t be better. Because while Republicans insist they have no interest in prosecuting or punishing women, their legislative trends tell a very different story:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985 ——————————————————————————————— FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices." Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; ————————————————————————————————— FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true! Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project; ------------------------------------------------------------------- |
