Tuesday, a Utah House committee approved a bill that would allow charges against a woman who attempts to have an illegal abortion after twenty weeks of pregnancy.
Republican Rep. Carl Wimmer sponsored the bill after a pregnant girl, 17, from Vernal, Utah paid a man to beat her in the stomach in order to miscarry the baby. She was seven months pregnant. The girl was charged, but the charges were later dismissed, and the state has appealed.
Wimmer is trying to prevent this same situation from ever happening again. The baby survived the attempted abortion and has since been adopted.
The bill called Wimmer’s bill will now go to the full house. The bill specifies what abortions are legal and what abortions are not legal, and if a mother were to attempt to abort in an illegal way a charge of criminal homicide may be brought against her.
In Utah, late term abortions are already illegal but this bill will hold the mother criminally responsible.
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Source: ABC 4 and the Associated Press
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Comments
This is another backlash against women in this country. Men, who never give birth or get pregnant should have to have a sex change operation and be impregnated against their will. Just another attempt to "put women in their place." If lawmakers truly thought a fetus was a "child" as soon as pregnancy occurred they should issue a Social Security Card and allow a child deduction.
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