Wow. I just got here and finished reading the thread. I'm basically dumfounded by the article.
If everything it states is true, then these women and many more like them are being charged for
accidentally killing a foetus that they were legally entitled to abort
intentionally. And in one case, a woman did everything she could to bring her pregnancy to term, the child lived for 19 minutes, and 6 months later she is charged under this "chemical endangerment" statute... a charge she denies and the article could not substantiate.
I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around that. According to Roe v. Wade, these women had the absolute right to deliberately terminate their pregnancies; but because the pregnancies were terminated accidentally, they're facing life in prison for murder.
This is the most invasive and blatant end-run around Roe v. Wade I've seen. We cannot on the one hand say that women have absolute reproductive choice before the age of viability, and on the other hand say that if anything happens to the pregnancy because the woman did something that unintentionally terminated the pregnancy. That makes every miscarriage a potential murder case. A pregnant woman who falls off a bike, engages in a sport or strenuous workouts, who works long hours, who drives a car, or faces any one of a thousand normal daily dangers subsequently miscarries, she could be held responsible and charged with murder.
Look, my heart goes out to babies born of drug users, alcoholics, etc., but when it comes to a time where women are imprisoned for life because they miscarried, there is something very wrong with the system. This is an invasive, and in my view an unconstitutional violation of women's basic human rights. I'm really appalled... and stunned that so many people actually support what is being done here.