Elsewhere this week: Where Do Dead Babies Go?

Why personhood laws matter for both the living and the dead

Photo by Wyxina Tresse on Unsplash

I should preface this post with a warning: It is about miscarriage, and if reading about this kind of loss right now is going to be difficult for you, please stop here. If you have experienced this loss, I am so sorry! Please know that you are not alone. There are organizations offering support, such as this one (and a moving interview with the founder here).

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Personhood laws have come to the fore as part of debates over abortion laws. But the way these laws are written, whenever they deny the personhood of the baby in utero (which the Roe decision originally did, setting the model for many states), they are extremely cruel to the living as well. This matters for a topic many lawmakers probably didn’t even think about: pregnancy loss, stillbirth, and infant loss. Where do dead babies go? Where can they be buried?

If you know me personally, you may know that Dan and I had lost two pregnancies in the second trimester. This was years ago, and most days, these losses don’t come to mind anymore. But this month, we unfortunately had no choice but to think about them again. I tell the story today at Current. A glimpse:

On Ash Wednesday 2017, I drove to my midwife’s office for a twenty-week ultrasound. I had lost my previous pregnancy at sixteen weeks. Still, I had two living children and no signs of trouble during this pregnancy. But when I got to the ultrasound, an awkward silence ensued when the technician passed her gel-soaked wand over my stomach. Abruptly she left the room. When she returned with my midwife, the latter gently informed me that the baby had no heartbeat. 

Twenty weeks is a significant milestone. A baby born dead after twenty weeks is classified as a stillbirth rather than a miscarriage. Medically speaking, such a delivery is riskier and best done under medical observation. And so, I was admitted into the hospital overnight to be induced…

Paperwork is a guarantee of life, just like death and taxes. In fact, both death and taxes require extra paperwork. Filling out paperwork in the hospital for this baby, I had to answer a key question: Did he ever draw a breath outside the womb? The answer was no. This meant that legally he could not be buried in a cemetery in Georgia where laws at the time only allowed cemetery burial for those who had drawn at least one breath alive.

You can read the full piece here.

How we treat the dead is connected to how we treat the living. We must respect the dignity of both.