(NJ)Bill to issue certificates for stillborns complicated by abortion debate

APWire (direct feed) | September 25, 2003

[NYer]

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) _ A bill that would allow parents to be issued a birth certificate for a stillborn child is under consideration in the state Legislature. As in other states where such measures have been introduced, abortion has been drawn into the debate over the New Jersey bill.

Parents of stillborn children have complained that while state law requires the babies to be buried, there are no official records that the infants were ever born. ``This is one of those small changes that the Legislature and the governor can do that can make people's lives a little better,'' bill sponsor Sen. Thomas H. Kean Jr., R-Union, told The Record of Bergen County for Thursday's editions.

Jennie and John Faith are among the parents pushing for the change. They were angered after their daughter, Clare, was stillborn and they found out that no official document of that event would be issued. ``I said to myself, `This isn't right,''' Jennie Faith said. ``The state is acknowledging that she died but not that she was born.''

There were 804 stillbirths in New Jersey in 2001, the last year for which complete statistics are available, according to the state health department. Up to 39,000 stillbirths take place in the United States each year.

Ten states have laws that require certificates to be issued for stillbirths, according to the Mothers in Sympathy and Support Foundation, a non-profit advocacy group. Another 13 states, including New Jersey, have bills on the matter pending. In two states, the issue has become caught up in abortion politics. In California a bill was withdrawn after the National Organization for Women and a gynecologists' group spoke out against it. They claimed stillbirth records could lead to the requirement that late-term abortions be reported, which would be an invasion of privacy.

New Jersey groups on both sides of the abortion debate said they have not taken a position on the bill. The bill was held up in the Assembly Health and Human Services Committee after some members questioned the language. The head of the committee then added language that would require the certificates to apply only to ``unintended'' fetal deaths so that they aren't issued for aborted fetuses. That amendment has not been adopted by the committee.

AP-ES-09-25-03 1033EDT

[NYer]

In California a bill was withdrawn after the National Organization for Women and a gynecologists' group spoke out against it.

NOW isn't that a surprise! (/sarcasm)

[NYer]

``unintended'' fetal death PING!

[mvpel]

`This isn't right,''' Jennie Faith said. ``The state is acknowledging that she died but not that she was born.''

I wonder why Ms. Faith is so obsessed with the Almighty State that she feels she needs a nameless bureaucrat to stamp a piece of paper and collect a fee in order to legitimize and validate her experience?

[exit82]

At first it seems unfathomable, but really there are good reasons for this piece of paper.

It is proof of a previous childbirth, and it is necessary to prove you had a child at tax time.

Moreso, it is a real validation that this little child really, really did exist. It is extremely important to the mother.

I experienced this first hand in my family. A brother born five years before me died at three days old. He was buried in a cemetery in an unmarked grave. That was the way it was done in 1949. By the time my mother was out of the hospital, it was like the baby never existed. My mother was always saddened by this into her elderly years.

I surprised her and my dad on what would have been my brother's 35th birthday. I had found the funeral home that handled my brother's burial, went to the cemetery(not in our town), and had the caretaker look it up and show me exactly where his unmarked grave was.

I took my parents to the spot and told them where we were. The wondrous look on my mother's face was something I'll always treasure. For both of them it was closure to a very painful episode in their lives. She always treasured the fact that her son had been found.

Sometimes, you just have to have traveled in someone else's shoes.

[Coleus]

Life Begins at Conception

S1771 Establishes certificate of birth resulting in stillbirth.
Health and Human Services

Identical Bill Number:    Cafiero, James S.   as Primary Sponsor Kean, Thomas H.   as Primary Sponsor Inverso, Peter A.   as Co-Sponsor Allen, Diane B.   as Co-Sponsor
9/12/2002 Introduced in the Senate, Referred to Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee 5/19/2003 Reported from Senate Committee with Amendments, 2nd Reading 6/23/2003 Passed by the Senate (35-0) 6/23/2003 Received in the Assembly, Referred to Assembly Health and Human Services Committee Introduced - 3 pages PDF Format    HTML Format Reprint - 2 pages PDF Format    HTML Format Statement - SHH 5/19/03 - 1 pages PDF Format    HTML Format

[Coleus]

ALSO,

Support A3206 

A3206 "New Jersey Abortion Statistical Data Law"

 

I think it would be prudent for us to support this bill since NJ is one of a few states in the USA which does NOT mandate clinics and hospitals to report their abortion statistics.  Although the bill doesn't touch upon RU-486 and fetuses discarded during in-vitro/vivo fertilizations it's a start in the right direction where at least we will know what's going on in hospitals and abortio

 

A3206 "New Jersey Abortion Statistical Data Law."
Health and Human Services

STATE POLICIES IN BRIEF As of SEPTEMBER 1, 2003

Title 26

State Facts About Abortion: New Jersey

 

Find your Legislator Here: or

Toll Free (800) 792-8630

[Coleus]

A3206 "New Jersey Abortion Statistical Data Law."
Health and Human Services

Steele, Alfred E.   as Primary Sponsor
Pennacchio, Joseph   as Primary Sponsor

1/23/2003 Introduced, Referred to Assembly Health and Human Services Committee

Introduced - 10 pages PDF Format    HTML Format

 

[Calpernia]

Did you see my ping to here yesterday? Make sure you check out my post #90.

[workerbee]

Because she had a child, that's why. If they were going to give her one for a child who "made it", then they owe her one for the child who didn't.

It's bad enough when most people act like there never was a "real" baby. It may sound silly to you, but having that birth certificate is a very important part of remembering that experience.

[workerbee]

The head of the committee then added language that would require the certificates to apply only to ``unintended'' fetal deaths so that they aren't issued for aborted fetuses.

How sad and sick can we get???

[NYer]

For both of them it was closure to a very painful episode in their lives. She always treasured the fact that her son had been found.

What a truly thoughtful thing to do for your parents. Families need closure, even when all that remains, like the last victim of 911, is nothing more than a vial of blood.

[NYer]

How sad and sick can we get???

Somehow, I believe it will get worse before it gets better, if ever.

[workerbee]

You've brought tears to my eyes. What an amazing thing for you to do.

[jjm2111]

Her name Faith only makes this more ironic.

[cpforlife.org]

In dealing w abortion, what we are dealing with is Fact v Fiction. The good news is that the truth is completely and exclusively on our side. The pro-abortionists have only rhetorical lies.

Many people use a specious argument that the pro-life and the pro-abortion arguments are equally valid and that one must respect both sides of the debate. This is utter nonsense and a flat-out lie.

THE TRUTH IS ON OUR SIDE, AND IT IS PROVABLE TO EVERYONE.

When does life begin? http://www.roevwade.org/upl39.html

* In 1981, a US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee held hearings on the very question before us here: When does human life begin? Speaking on behalf of the scientific community was a group of internationally known geneticists and biologists who had the same story to tell, namely, that human life begins at conception - and they told their story with a profound absence of opposing testimony.

Dr. Micheline M. Mathews-Roth, Harvard medical School, gave confirming testimony, supported by references from over 20 embryology and other medical textbooks that human life began at conception.

* "The Father of Modern Genetics" Dr. Jerome Lejeune told the lawmakers: "To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion ... it is plain experimental evidence. Human life began at conception "

* Dr. Hymie Gordon, Chairman, Department of Genetics at the Mayo Clinic, added: "By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception."

* Dr. McCarthy de Mere, medical doctor and law professor, University of Tennessee, testified: "The exact moment of the beginning of personhood and of the human body is at the moment of conception."

* Dr. Landrum Shettles, sometimes called the "Father of In Vitro Fertilization" notes, "Conception confers life and makes that life one of a kind." And on the Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade, "To deny a truth [about when life begins] should not be made a basis for legalizing abortion."

* Professor Eugene Diamond: "...either the justices were fed a backwoods biology or they were pretending ignorance about a scientific certainty."

[Lorianne]

I don't think the question of when human life begins is at issue, most pro-Choice people conceed human life begins at conception. What they dispute is that human life = human being.

The question is when does a human life entity become (or cease being) a human being? This is a question that science cannot answer and does not attempt to answer. The determination of "human being" is philosophical, not scientific. The question has long been debated, most recently in our history over blacks and slavery and granting blacks the vote .... and by the Nazis determining that Jews are not fully human beings, they admitted they were human-like life forms. Who is and who is not a human-being has always been a subjective, not objective excercise.

Since humans are fallible, I contend that they are not capable of making this determination (in either direction). So I believe we have no choice but to err on the side of caution and assume that all human-life forms are human beings from conception until they die a natural death. This is the only logical and rational approach at present given the limits of our knowledge.

The next question, after we assume every human life form is a human being, is to determine which human beings are deserving of protection from harm, and which are not. History is replete with this determination being made by some human beings to disastourous results for other other humans.

Which human beings are worthy of prostection from harm is also an arbitrary and subjective determination. And again, since humans are fallible in their judgements, I believe we must again agree to err on the side of caution and assume all human beings are worthy of protection from harm.

Even such great minds as Einstein argued that man cannot know everything.

[Coleus]

Stillborns, their parents say, deserve birth certificates
State of LA now recognizes births of stillborns Destrehan woman fought for measure
Bill To Issue Certificates For Stillborns Complicated By Abortion Debate
Suit asks: Who will pay for stillborn?

[cpforlife.org]

Thanks Lorianne,

More specifically, the "personhood" case is the legal factor that is the heart of the matter as to why this nation has had a 30 year holocaust of people waiting to be born.

Constitutional Persons:An Exchange on Abortion

The common law basis of our system embodied in the principle of stare decisis and the just requirements of consistency in applying the law demand a respect for precedent. To this objection I offer two replies. First, there was a federal court precedent for the unborn person reading of Fourteenth Amendment before Roe v. Wade, though this fact was virtually ignored by Justice Harry Blackmun and the Roe Court. In Steinberg v. Brown (1970) a three-judge federal district court upheld an anti-abortion statute, stating that privacy rights "must inevitably fall in conflict with express provisions of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments that no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law." After relating the biological facts of fetal development, the court stated that "those decisions which strike down state abortion statutes by equating contraception and abortion pay no attention to the facts of biology." "Once new life has commenced," the court wrote, "the constitutional protections found in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments impose upon the state the duty of safeguarding it." Yet in commenting on the unborn person argument in Roe, Justice Blackmun wrote that "the appellee conceded on reargument that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment." He did so despite the fact that he had cited the case just five paragraphs earlier! The failure of both appellees and the Court to treat this case is both unfortunate and inexplicable. Second, while our system is based upon a reasonable and healthy respect for precedent, this has never prevented the Court from revisiting and modifying precedent when the erroneous foundation and unjust results of that precedent become manifest. Such is the case with respect to abortion and the Fourteenth Amendment.

[MHGinTN]

Well said, brother. Too few have even heard of the Stenberg v Brown case and the court's clear instruction for protecting individual human life once identified as begun! Many who might read this entry of yours will seek an exception argument, to parse the clear meaning of the 1970 decision.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!