DEMOCRACY FOR VIRGINIA
BILL HR1677
READ ABOUT IT HERE:
THIS IS WHAT THR REPUBLICAN AGENDA IS ABOUT!
IGNORE YOUR RIGHTS AND THEY WILL GO AWAY!

Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty: HR1677 - A Reply from Delegate Cosgrove
As of a minute ago, this site has received over 40,000 hits in the past 24 hours, and this story has spread to over 100 blogs and many more hundreds of message boards and email lists. The story's spread from here and DailyKos to countless infertility/miscarriage blogs, to Fark.com, to Atrios and Air America Radio and beyond. I have only begun to scratch the surface of reading the discussions that this has spawned in the blogosphere, but I'm grateful for the response and thankful for the attention that this legislation has been given. Some thoughts:
A few people have written, essentially, "Why make such a big deal out of this? This bill is SO bad it will surely die in committee, or get voted down, or get vetoed." Sure, bad bills get introduced in every legislature. But some of them become law, and sometimes they become law because ordinary citizens weren't aware of them before they became law.
One commenter wrote, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."
Unfortunately, this recent vigilance has kept me awake for far more than 24 hours straight, and I need to drive my parents to a family function many hours away tomorrow, so I'm not going to be able to do justice to this update right now. I didn't want to wait to post this update, though, because it is so important.
I am delighted to report that Delegate Cosgrove has contacted me directly about HB1677. Delegate Cosgrove has been inundated with calls and emails today in response to the viral spread of this story via the internet, and he is doing his best to respond to them.
He has asked me to share his email with you here, and I do so with thanks to him for his time and thought in composing it (emphasis mine):
Dear Maura:
I am Delegate Cosgrove and I wish to respond to your website and the allegations that have been made by those who have emailed and called my office. The intent of House Bill 1677 is to require the notification of authorities of a delivery of a baby that is dead and the mother has not been attended by a medical professional. This bill was requested by the Chesapeake Police Department in its legislative package due to instances of full term babies who were abandoned shortly after birth. These poor children died horrible deaths. If a coroner could not determine if the child was born alive, the person responsible for abandoning the child could only be charged with is the improper disposal of a human body.
The requirement for the twelve hour notification timeframe comes from the method that a coroner would use to determine if the child had been born alive or dead. After twelve hours, it becomes next to impossible to determine if the child was alive due to decomposition gasses that build up in the body.
My bill in no way intends that a woman who suffers a miscarriage should be charged for not notifying authorities. The bill in no way mentions miscarriages, only deliveries. However, after discussing the bill again with our legislative services lawyers, I have decided to include language that will define the bill to apply only to those babies that are claimed to have been stillborn and that are abandoned as stated above.
I would never inflict the type of emotional torture on a woman who has suffered such a traumatic event as a miscarriage by making her notify authorities of her loss. I would also never impose criminal sanctions on a woman who has gone through this loss. And I am confident that the General Assembly of Virginia would also not pass such a terrible imposition on a woman. My mother experienced several miscarriages and I have other friends who have been devastated by losing their children through miscarriages.
On a final note, your website advocates the use of emailing comments to my office. As for the emails that I have received, I have answered a few and will forward a similar explanation to those who sent them. I always seek to receive emails that express a point of view either in support or in opposition to an issue. The majority of emails I have received from this site, however, have been extremely abusive, condescending, and mean-spirited. That is never the way to communicate with another person and I hope that civil discourse would be your desire as well.
I hope that you will post this explanation on your website and understand the original intent of this bill. If you feel the need to discuss this matter more fully, please do not hesitate to call. Thank you for your time and consideration of this matter.
Sincerely,
John A. Cosgrove
I have sent him an initial reply thanking him for his thoughtful response, and I plan to spend some time tomorrow night or Sunday in composing a more substantive post which addresses the information he provides here and asks him questions about the revisions he plans.
For now, Delegate Cosgrove, if you're reading, the most important thing I want to say is thank you for listening to the concerns of so many people, even those who expressed their concern angrily or even abusively. I am heartened to hear that you plan narrow the scope of HB1677 to more closely fit your stated intent.
If you'd like to continue this dialogue with Delegate Cosgrove, please consider sharing your questions or concerns in comments. This issue has brought together so many people in a positive way today - Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Libertarians, pro-choice, and pro-life commenters found much common ground in objection to the original format of the bill. I think that's a Good Thing, as is Delegate Cosgrove's outreach to us here.
If you all could continue the eternal vigilance while I sleep now, I'd appreciate it. :-)
Posted by Maura in VA on January 08, 2005 at 02:59 AM in 2005 Legislative Agenda Permalink Comments (20) TrackBack (8)
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Lesgislative Sentry: Updates on HB1677...yes, it IS that bad + links galore
I have been overwhelmed and heartened by the response to yesterday's alert about HB1677. The most heartfelt, impassioned, and determined reactions to this bill have come from the blogging community of women who have experienced infertility and/or miscarriages, thanks to an incredible post at Chez Miscarriage, one of the best blogs I've ever read.
I've now read hundreds of comments and trackbacks and emails about this original post, and I wanted to write a brief follow-up because some comments have reflected misunderstandings about the details of the bill. The average reader probably doesn't have time to wade through all the details and links I included in my first post, so here are some clarifications:
Not all miscarriages in Virginia would have to be reported to the police if Delegate Cogrove's bill becomes law. Current Virginia law mandates that any "fetal deaths" that occur under the care of a physican be reported. So if you have a miscarriage in the hospital, your doctor already reports this. Law enforcement agencies are not involved - it's mandated statistical reporting from doctors to a Registrar of births and deaths.
Delegate Cosgrove's bill only applies "when fetal death occurs without medical attendance".
"Miscarriage" is my word, not Delegate Cosgrove's. He uses the term "fetal death". My illustrative scenario of a miscarriage at 8 weeks' gestation does not involve a fetus (using the medical definition of a fetus) but it does involve a "fetal death" using the Code of Virginia definition of "fetal death", which refers to "a product of human conception, regardless of the duration of pregnancy". I interpret this to include a pregnancy of 8 weeks' gestation.
Delegate Cosgrove has reportedly written an email reply to a blogger who asked him what his rationale for the bill could be. According to her, Delegate Cosgrove says that the bill is intended to "reduce the number of "trashcan" babies that are born and then abandoned in trashcans, toilets, or elsewhere to die from exposure or worse." I have not myself heard from him in response to my original email four days ago. Based on the responses I've read all over the blogosphere, I imagine his email box is now full of impassioned missives from women who've miscarried, so I don't know whether I'll ever hear back directly.
I want to believe that Delegate Cosgrove honestly has the good intentions of wanting to save abandoned babies. He talked about the Golden Rule in his response, so I'll try to do unto him in assuming good intentions. But regardless of his intentions, this bill has nothing to do with saving infants from being abandoned in dumpsters.
This bill has to do with fetal death. When a fetal death occurs, the pregnancy has already ended. There is no live infant to save. Mandating reporting of fetal death by a grieving mother to cops within 12 hours doesn't save anyone. It just causes pain. And indignity.
Delegate Cosgrove, in this bill, is not the one who defined fetal death in Virginia, so don't blame him. Maybe he meant for the bill to apply only to fetuses of 20 or 24 weeks' gestation or more. But that's not what he wrote. What he wrote relies on existing Code of Virginia definitions of "fetal death", which are markedly different than medical definitions of fetal death. And whether Delegate Cosgrove intended it or not, his bill, as written, would apply to women experiencing spontaneous losses of very early pregnancies.
For statistical purposes, the CDC's National Center on Health Statistics says "A death that occurs at 20 or more weeks of gestation constitutes a fetal death, and after 28 weeks it is considered a late fetal death." If this is what Delegate Cosgrove meant by "fetal death" in the bill, he needs to add that language. There is nothing in the bill to re-define fetal death differently than the Code of Virginia defines it.
Delegate Cosgrove is also not directly responsible for the long list of data fields that are included in the Report of Fetal Death, Commonwealth of Virginia. This is defined in the Virginia Administrative Code. Perhaps he was not aware of what data fields are required in the form when he wrote his bill.
Your state also has laws regarding reporting of fetal deaths. The CDC publishes "State Definitions and Reporting Requirements for Live Births, Fetal Deaths, and Induced Terminations of Prenancy" (PDF).
Most states use a form that is based on the U.S. Standard Report of Fetal Death form (PDF). If you really want to get into detail, here's a 207-page report from the National Center on Health Statistics (PDF) that may either satisfy your wonkish addiction to detail, or scare the Big Brother-fearing life out of you.
And here is a handy worksheet the NCHS has provided for you to fill out after you experience miscarriage in the hospital (PDF). I call it the Homework Assignment from Hell. That sympathetic disclaimer in the beginning is nice, but...what a difficult thing to have to do.
Some commenters in the blogosphere have suggested that this is a firestorm about nothing, since this bill is so unenforceable, burdensome, etc., that no legislature would ever pass it. That may be true, but I believe strongly that shining light on legislation like this can only be a good thing. If it causes Delegate Cosgrove's office great inconvenience of sorting through lots of concerned emails...well, I also think that's a good thing. Not the inconvenience, but the input from concerned citizens. It's democracy in action. And just as I'm trying to ascribe good intentions to Delegate Cosgrove, I hope he'll ascribe the same to me.
Continue reading "Lesgislative Sentry: Updates on HB1677...yes, it IS that bad + links galore"
Posted by Maura in VA on January 07, 2005 at 03:13 PM in 2005 Legislative Agenda Permalink Comments (9) TrackBack (2)
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Legislative Sentry: HB1677 - Have Miscarriage, Go to Jail?
UPDATE: If you are visiting this link for the first time, please read this clarification and this update before contacting Delegate Cosgrove, whose office has been inundated by emails. The email deluge is a Good Thing, IMO, but only if the emails themselves are based on a full understanding of his proposed legislation. So please read before you rant! :-) And thanks for caring enough to rant, to act, to inform yourselves, to get involved. I'm in awe.
The update includes the text of the email that Delegate Cosgrove asked me to share with readers.
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Imagine the following scenario.
You are at home alone at 8:00 on a Friday night. You are 8 weeks pregnant. You are excited about the pregnancy, but being cautious, you haven’t told anyone about it yet except your partner, your best friend, your parents, and your doctor.
All of a sudden, you begin to experience heavy cramping. Bleeding ensues. You realize with shock and sadness that you are probably experiencing a miscarriage. You leave a message with your doctor’s service. The on-call doctor calls back, offers sympathies, and advises taking pain medication or going to the hospital if the bleeding gets worse. She offers you the next available appointment for a follow-up exam - Monday at 3PM. You accept. You are overwhelmed with grief and surprised by the intensity of physical pain involved. You call your partner and ask him to come home from his “boys night out”, sparing him the reason over the phone. You call your best friend. She offers to come over immediately and make you cocoa. You cry.
You decide not to tell your parents yet; let them sleep through the night before delivering the terrible news. Your partner comes home and you break the sad news to him. He holds you on the couch and you both cry together. Your best friend comes over with cocoa. You cry some more. Over the next few hours, you suffer pain, cramping, and intermittent bleeding. Exhausted, you finally fall asleep in your partner’s arms around 4 AM. You sleep until noon, and then gird yourself for the difficult call to your parents, who were so eagerly anticipating their first grandchild.
Guess what? You just earned yourself up to 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine. Why? Because you failed to call the cops and report your miscarriage within 12 hours.
True? Not yet. But if Delegate John Cosgrove (R-78) has his way, HB1677 will become law in a few short months, and this scenario will be reality for many women in Virginia.
Incredulous? Outraged? Read on below the jump for more information on this odious bill.
Continue reading "Legislative Sentry: HB1677 - Have Miscarriage, Go to Jail?"
Posted by Maura in VA on January 06, 2005 at 01:26 AM in 2005 Legislative Agenda Permalink Comments (116) TrackBack (60)
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Charlottesville DFV Update
The following post is from Donna Goings, longtime DFA Meetup leader in Charlottesville.
As we put 2004 behind us we can look forward with hope and excitement. There are local, state, and national happenings that tell me we are not retreating in our efforts to change public policy.
1. Democracy for America/Democracy for Virginia MeetupWednesday, January 5th. 7:00PM 404 8th St. NE - 2nd floor the Prudential Building. Plenty of parking around the building.Please register at http://dfa.meetup.com/3/
Agenda:
View Lakoff DVD.
Discuss DVD by reviewing current campaign literature and web sites of candidates for Gov., Lt. Gov. and Att. General of Virginia
Brainstorm Session: A number of people have expressed a need for a DFA-Charlottesville Logo. We would make lapel pins and car stickers using this logo. Ideas floating--liberty bell, photo of Jefferson & Madison, etc.
Read more about Charlottesville DFA activities by clicking below!
Continue reading "Charlottesville DFV Update"
Posted by Maura in VA on January 03, 2005 at 07:40 PM in Congressional District 5, Regions: Charlottesville Permalink Comments (0) TrackBack (0)
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Legislative Sentry: Reagan Airport...now Reagan Highway? Heads up on HB1656...
Northern Virginians are well aware of the controversy and expense associated with the re-naming of Washington National Airport to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport a short time ago. Now, just a few months after the death of former President Reagan, a Republican delegate from Manassas, L. Scott Ligamfelter, is leading a new Reagan-naming charge in Northern Virginia: the proposed "Ronald Wilson Reagan Memorial Highway."
Delegate Ligamfelter has introduced HB1656, which proposes the designation of the Route 234 bypass in Manassas (between Route 1 and I-66) as the Ronald Wilson Reagan Memorial Highway.
11 other Republican delegates have signed on as co-patrons of the bill.
What do you think - do you want a Reagan Highway in Manassas? How does this proposed name fit in with established guidelines for naming of memorials in Virginia?

posted by Joshua P. Angell  @ 9.1.05

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