debate over whether stillborns should be issued birth certificates
Apparently there are pro-choicers out there who feel that wanted children who die before birth should not be acknowledged with an official birth certificate because they are afraid it will undermine abortion.
"I remember my discharge nurse said to me, 'You are still a mom. Don't forget that,' " said Golant of San Francisco. "It was amazing to me how important those words were in the days and weeks after my daughter died. But there was no official evidence I was a mom. I had the milk in my breasts and the potbelly of a postpartum mom, but I didn't have a birth certificate."
It is more than a piece of paper to many of the nearly 3,000 families that cope with stillbirth each year in California. They are anxiously watching Senate Bill 850, which would authorize the state to issue a "certificate of birth resulting in stillbirth." It is headed to the Senate Health Committee on Wednesday for its first in a long line of hearings.
The bill's path is not likely to be smooth, even though similar legislation already has passed in 18 states and is pending in seven others.
The national discussion about birth certificates for stillborns, which are being pushed by bereaved parents working with the Missing Angels Foundation, has been mingled with the abortion debate. Pro-choice advocates have opposed the laws on the grounds that they could fuel the anti-abortion cause by acknowledging that an unborn fetus is a person.
...full article is available at
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/10/STILLBORN.TMP
"I remember my discharge nurse said to me, 'You are still a mom. Don't forget that,' " said Golant of San Francisco. "It was amazing to me how important those words were in the days and weeks after my daughter died. But there was no official evidence I was a mom. I had the milk in my breasts and the potbelly of a postpartum mom, but I didn't have a birth certificate."
It is more than a piece of paper to many of the nearly 3,000 families that cope with stillbirth each year in California. They are anxiously watching Senate Bill 850, which would authorize the state to issue a "certificate of birth resulting in stillbirth." It is headed to the Senate Health Committee on Wednesday for its first in a long line of hearings.
The bill's path is not likely to be smooth, even though similar legislation already has passed in 18 states and is pending in seven others.
The national discussion about birth certificates for stillborns, which are being pushed by bereaved parents working with the Missing Angels Foundation, has been mingled with the abortion debate. Pro-choice advocates have opposed the laws on the grounds that they could fuel the anti-abortion cause by acknowledging that an unborn fetus is a person.
...full article is available at
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/10/STILLBORN.TMP