Posted on 05/24/2007 2:43:38 AM PDT by monomaniac
NEW YORK, May 23, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Joanne Cacciatore has waged a decade-long battle to convince elected officials to recognize the need of parents to recognize the humanity of their stillborn babies with birth certificates.
Ms. Cacciatore, the founder of the M.I.S.S. foundation and the MISSing Angels petition, spoke with LifeSiteNews.com about her own personal experience advocating the rights of herself and other parents seeking closure and the frustrating opposition she faces from abortion advocates opposed to birth certificates as some sort of stealth pro-life legislation.
Ms. Cacciatore’s experience began with the death and birth of her daughter, Cheyenne. “She was 8 pounds, 22 inches long, with dark curly hair and long fingers. She died 15 minutes before she was born on her due date,” Ms. Cacciatore recounts, saying losing her daughter was an “incredibly traumatic and overwhelming loss” for her and her three children.
“I wanted a copy of her birth certificate for her baby book,” said Ms. Cacciatore, who was struggling to cope with the myriad of painful questions parents ask themselves when their child dies just before birth. Instead, she received a death certificate, “cause unknown” from the state of Arizona. Without a birth certificate, she said the notice felt to her like “a constant reminder of my failure as a woman, that my body had failed my child.”
“[The state] said that I didn’t get a birth certificate, that I didn’t have a baby. I had a fetus, and the fetus died,” Ms. Cacciatore said. “I was dumbfounded, completely dumbfounded. I still had milk in my breasts; I had just given birth. You can’t tell a woman that pushes an 8-pound baby out that she just didn’t give birth. There’s no way around it. In the animal kingdom and human beings, birth is birth is birth.”
Nevertheless, Ms. Cacciatore turned her tragic loss around by founding the M.I.S.S. Foundation in 1996 to help women and their families cope with the loss of their stillborn children. Now it has 27 online support groups with over 25,000 members.
Then in 1999, Ms. Cacciatore began lobbying for herself and other grieving parents to change state laws, starting the MISSing Angels Bill movement. In 2001, Arizona became the first state to give birth certificates for stillborn babies and since then 19 states have followed suit, giving closure to thousands of women without birth certificates to recognize their stillborn children. Seven other states are contemplating legislation and the goal is to have all 50 states on board by 2010. (See here for the current list: http://www.missingangelsbill.org/stchart.html)
“Every legislator who would take ten minutes out of their day to meet with me about the absurdity of the law supported it, whether pro-choice or pro-life,” Ms. Cacciatore stated.
However influential pro-abortion groups such as the National Organization of Women (NOW), NARAL Pro-Choice America, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have fiercely opposed the MISSing Angels bills on the grounds that it would recognize personhood for the unborn and thus undermine a “woman’s right to choose.”
“It’s frustrating to me that pro-choices forces in essence by supporting abortion are taking away one woman’s right to choose in order to protect their agenda,” said Ms. Cacciatore. “Philosophically it’s pretty hard to deny a birth certificate to a woman who gave birth to a dead baby if you’re supporting a woman’s right to choose. Let her choose.”
Mc. Cacciatore emphasized that the M.I.S.S. Foundation in no way takes a position on abortion, but is simply dedicated to families who have lost their babies as a result of stillbirth. The trauma is real for them, the effects can be intergenerational, and the certificates provide them much needed closure as Ms. Cacciatore and other families say in a moving video found on YouTube and here (http://www.missingangelsbill.org/default.html ).
“One woman whose baby was stillborn in 1951 sent me a letter and said I want my daughter’s birth certificate so I can die in peace,” recalled Ms. Cacciatore.
“How dare we tell a group of women who want and love their babies that they’re not babies, they’re fetuses and they don’t count!”
“I am extremely frustrated that families of stillborn babies keep getting thrust in the middle of a political debate where they don’t belong. It is absurd, it is offensive, and inappropriate,” Ms. Cacciatore continued. Besides coordinating the volunteer campaign for promoting birth certificates for stillborn babies, the non-profit M.I.S.S. Foundation also advocates increased research to help prevent stillbirth and infant death.
Studies indicate that over 50% of stillbirths occur with no diagnosable reason, and besides abortion, stillbirth is one of the leading mechanisms of infant death with 25,000-30,000 babies born dead every year.
“The vital center of America is behind this, much like the vital center of America was behind Lacy and Connor Peterson’s Law. I have got so many phone calls, e-mails and letters of support from people who are parents, who are pro-life, who are pro-choice; from feminists, and from people who have never had children. The vital center of America supports this and rejects opposition as absurd.”
Related items of interest:
M.I.S.S. Foundation:
http://www.missfoundation.org
MISSing Angels Bill site (includes powerful YouTube video testimony by families dealing with stillbirth)
http://www.missingangelsbill.org
See related coverage by LifeSiteNews.com:
Funerals Denied for Stillborn Children at Ontario Hospital http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/feb/04020904.html
Court Rules Parents Can't Sue Hospital because Stillborn Child Not a Person Under The Law http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/aug/04083007.html ;
Thank you for posting this. I was not aware of such an organization or of the MISSing Angels Bill movement. I had a stillborn baby girl in 2002 at 30 weeks. Fortunately, I had alot of family and church support, and we did have a funeral and burial. I think having a birth certificate is a great idea.
This is feel good nonsense and a waste of taxpayer money. Sorry to rain on the parade, but that’s just how I see it.
Would this change the language in one’s medical records to miscarriage rather than calling it abortion when abortion was not intended?
That’s great! Let’s remind the parents of a very sad day.
I would say you’re not ‘raining’ but ‘pissing’ on the parade. Good job.
She know’s that she once had a child who passed on. God knows this. Her friends and family know this. I don’t understand why she cares what the state thinks. I’d be glad if the state forgot that I existed.
No, you won’t get the promotions if the state has any sense at all.
Usually you get on those lists through your obstetrician’s office, and the companies really ratchet them up at your due date - they have no way of knowing that your baby didn’t make it.
I learned the hard way to refuse the mailing list through the OB - and the maternity store.
Mrs VS
Friends and family forget - the child wasn’t part of their lives; they never knew the child; maybe they never saw the child. If the mother keeps up a good front, they may think she’s over it. Let her have her bit of paper - when you don’t have much else each little bit matters.
Mrs VS
That’s terrrible to tell her that child was only a “fetus”. The child only died 15 minutes before birth. The child was a baby, her baby. She pushed out and gave birth to that baby which was over 8lbs. She deserves to have a birth certificate. Perhaps parents of stillborns can be offered the option of a birth certificate if they choose. That way parents who don’t want one can decline, and those that do can have one. I don’t see the big deal in printing up a simple certificate for the family of the deceased child.
If you took the time to educate yourself, you’d see that the state charges a hefty fee for the certificates. One news article said it was generating revenue for the state. Stateline.org did a good article someone emailed me on this— my friend’s baby was stillborn at 42 weeks (she delivered a nearly 11 lbs toddler for crying out loud) and she wanted a bc for her baby. I dont understand why, but hell, if the state says she must bury by law, and gives a death certificate, they have to allow her to get a birth certificate. Really, the arguments against it that I’ve read are inane. So what if no one here gets why- if it happens to you and you dont want it, dont get one. Why tell another woman she can’t if she does want it.
Swear to God. I spent two years in Australia and this bull**it polarized nonsensical politicking never went on there.
I really do wonder if anyone read the article. It’s not about miscarriages. It’s about viable babies. Has nothing to do with pregnancy loss or abortion.
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