woman arrested for harming unborn child.

[StuckinTheMiddlewithYou]

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/15/woman-attempted-suicide-pregnant-accused

Could this ever happen here?

I've just read SGB's Bobby Franklin link. Dear god. He reckons any woman who miscarries is guilty of murder, unless she can prove her 'innocence'? I'd be laughing, if this dangerous fool weren't in a position of great influence.

Sounds like the only way for a woman to escape the risk of a death sentance would be to remain a virgin ... oh, but hang on, he reckons women are guilty of their own rapes, too, doesn't he? All he's got to do now is propose that women who don't get pregnant get the death sentance, too, and his circle will be complete. Or would be, if this lunacy ever became law.

Ribena, I simply can't agree with you about the OP story. If the concept had any validity at all, it would make suicide a possible crime for a wman - but not for a man. That automatically affords unequal rights, at the very fundamental level of rights over one's own life.

While I take your point about how you'd feel if someone killed your baby in utero, this principle couldn't be logically taken forwards because of the possibility that a woman may or may not be pregnant. It's thankfully rare that an agressor deliberately targets the unborn child (in civilian life, this is sometimes attempted by a partner) and there are legal provisions for it.

Your argument goes to the heart of the abortion debate: if it's murder to kill an unborn child, then abortion is murder ...

I don't quite understand where we disagree. You talk about there being legal provision for if someone targets an unborn child, which is exactly what I was talking about garlicbutter. I was specifically talking about a viable baby (hence heavily pregnant) and the UK legislation and did talk about the difficulty of reconciling that with the fact that clearly suicide should not be a crime.

There is a tension there though, isn't thre. Do you automatically exempt the mother from our legislation - which perhaps is the way forward.

Well if she wasn't suicidal the poor women might be now

DH works in forensic Psychiatry (nurse not trickcylist) and many women here end up in psych instead of prison. Under the DSM it seems easier to diagnose women with mental illness than men. I wonder why?