Michelle Duggar, the quiverfull mother of 19, and star of TLC's "19 and Counting," miscarried her 20th baby during the second trimester.
FWIW my heart goes out to Michelle Duggar and her family. I have had two miscarriages myself, but even if I hadn't I would feel empathy for her and her family. Unlike many Americans, who seem to mostly inhabit the GOP (search audience applause in recent GOP primary debates), I am a liberal, I am hardwired for empathy.
It doesn't matter her race, her religion (she and I are not the same religion), her political party, anything. She and her family are suffering, and that's all that matters.
However, I do feel compelled to point something out:
"Michelle is resting comfortably at home with the support of the entire family," Jim Bob tells E! News. "We are grateful for all the thoughts and prayers, but ask for privacy during this difficult time."
- E! News
The Duggars are "Right to Lifers," or as many of us on the left call them, "forced birthers."
The forced birth movement has in recent years tried to pass "personhood" amendments in many states. Most recently loosing in Mississippi. These amendments would declare life starts at the moment of fertilization.
Not continent with loosing the issue in Colorado in 2008 and 2010. forced birthers are putting it back on the Colorado ballot for 2012. It will also appear in Oregon and Montana.
The group California Civil Rights Foundation is trying to get an amendment on the 2012 ballot defining a "person" as "all living human beings from beginning of biological development as human organism." In Florida, the anti-abortion advocates at American Life League and Personhood USA have launched a signature-gathering effort for a similar initiative that would grant rights starting at "the beginning of the biological development of that human being." The Montana ProLife Coalition is also gathering signatures for a ballot measure that would amend the state constitution to define "person" to encompass "the stage of fertilization or conception."
The Nevada Pro-life Coalition, meanwhile, has taken a slightly different tack that would nevertheless achieve the same end, with an effort to outlaw "the intentional taking of a prenatal person's life" via an amendment to the state constitution. The measure would guarantee the "unalienable right to life" of "every human being at all stages of biological development before birth."
- Mother Jones
If personhood of a zygote/fetus had been the law of Arkansas, Michelle would not just be dealing with her own grief right now, but also facing an investigation to see if she was responsible, in anyway, for the death (murder) of the fetus (pre-born).
Jim Bob Duggar asking for privacy is right and good. ALL families, ALL mothers dealing with a miscarriage deserve compassion and that consideration. Especially in the days and weeks after a miscarriage, when you are not just mourning the loss, but questioning your own body.
They do not deserve to be placed under a cloud of suspicion that these amendments, if they became law, would place them under.
For those who say that I'm being crass to point this out right now. If those laws were in place, right now the police would be investigating Michelle Duggar.