A bit of common sense

Last week, a bill passed in the Utah Senate and House stirring up one of the most contentious arguments in the nation: abortion. The law was created in response to a 17-year-old girl from Vernal, Utah who paid a man $150 to beat her up to terminate her pregnancy. The baby survived her beating, and she gave it up for adoption.
The bill is now awaiting Governor Herbert’s signature after a 24-4 Senate vote pushed it through and onto the final leg of its journey, and if the bill is signed into law any woman who causes her own miscarriage by “intentional, knowing or reckless act” will face criminal charges. To break that down, miscarrying could result in a homicide charge and life in prison.
Because one girl made one awful choice does not qualify legislation with this kind of reaction. A young girl was pushed to an extreme position; she made a decision almost none of us will ever come close to facing. And Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, responds with legislation that has ridiculous and impossible implications.
This bill has too many money-wasting opportunities. How exactly is Utah supposed to enforce this law? One of every four pregnancies is a miscarriage, which means massive numbers of women miscarry all the time. This law applies to an accidental miscarriage alongside intentional, premeditated, illegal abortions. The problem here: the definition “reckless” could encompass almost anything.
It’s not impossible to think that this legal definition could include reckless driving as endangerment to the fetus. If an eight-months-pregnant woman drives recklessly and crashes her car, killing the unborn fetus, is she charged with reckless driving or homicide? She could wind up with a life sentence. If she smokes, does this qualify as reckless? Reckless enough to receive criminal charges? When a woman is already facing a difficult moment, losing a pregnancy, they can be hauled in for a round of questioning from police. Who’s to say old boyfriends won’t take advantage of this law’s wording?
Let’s take the issue to an extreme. Should Utah adopt a system that catalogs all pregnancies to make sure not a single fetus is illegally aborted from reckless behavior? Should Utah spend taxpayer money on a special unit that focuses on fetal homicide? Even if charges were presented against a woman, an overwhelming majority of the cases would be improvable and waste time in court. There is only one case like the girl in Vernal, and that’s her. She’s rare; her case is rare.
On top of the issues this bill presents for women living in Utah, abortion is legal in this state. By legal definition, abortion is legal until the moment of viability, meaning the moment the baby could survive without the mother. Legally, the state has no right to charge a woman with homicide if the U.S. does not recognize a fetus as a human life until that moment.
If Utah would step back for a moment and realize the larger issue has nothing to do with homicide, our government would see this has more to do with the desperation a 17-year-old felt when she paid someone to beat her up. What is the root cause and how can Utah deal with that? Wimmer should ask why a teen would have done this, or even better, why she was pregnant in the first place.
Utah needs comprehensive sex education. Abstinence-only education has stalled sexual activity at best, and led to unsafe sex practice among teens, leading to more teen pregnancies. When Utah can grow up and address the reality that teens have sex, our legislators can finally tackle real issues. When a teenage girl pays a man to beat her violently, the problem came before the pregnancy. The problem starts with how sex and abstinence are viewed, how we deal with teens having sex and how we can provide the social outlets that keep girls from last resorts that put them in a hospital.