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Comment by scblock | Hacker News Reader

Then you haven't tried looking. Women are being arrested and even convicted for having miscarriages, including in the US.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59214544

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/georgia-arrest-miscarri...

https://churchandstate.org.uk/2015/01/conservative-dream-com...

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/06/health/miscarriage-criminal-c...

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/04/02/law-pregnancy-...

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-increasing-risk-of-cri...

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You should clarify that these are women who deliberately induce a miscarriage (ie. a home abortion) or whose extraordinarily reckless and dangerous behaviours result in a miscarriage that may or may not have been deliberately induced, but either way are unconscionable and directly responsible for the child's death. You don't do your cause any favours when you present these cases as "miscarriages", knowing full well that many people perceive this as the unfortunate loss of a child by a conscientious and responsible expectant mother.

Their reply was to "I couldn’t find instances of women being imprisoned for getting an abortion."

Replace "You" with "I"?

Every single of the six links you provided are about miscarriages and not abortions. Either I don’t understand something medical (not a doctor), or you’re mixing things to derail a conversation (dishonestly or unintentionally). Whether those miscarriages were natural or a result of human malice, is an absolutely separate discussion.

How does all that prove an original point that an abortion can get a woman to prison?

This comment in this thread explains it fairly clearly. Do not make the mistake of thinking this is just a semantic difference.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44247822

I agree that overreach of prosecution is possible (as with many other laws), but I disagree that a fix for bad laws or bad legal process is “make it easier for people to break laws and not get caught, and to cooperate discreetly on breaking laws”

if an unintentional miscarriage can get you punished, then an abortion most certainly can too, since an abortion is an intentional miscarriage.

"If Poolaw had had an abortion instead of a miscarriage, she would not have been charged at all, as abortion is legal in Oklahoma."

That was definitely not what I expected.

that is completely bizarre!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com