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Comment by epanchin | Hacker News Reader

CNN: “A West Virginia prosecutor is warning women that a miscarriage could lead to criminal charges”.

A gap in periods followed by their resumption could theoretically be enough to lead to prosecution.

While it's true that CNN ran an article like that, the underlying claim has been formally rebutted by the West Virginia Prosecuting Attorneys Association, who clarified that:

> Women who experience miscarriage are not required to notify law enforcement and should not fear prosecution…recent public statements do not reflect the consensus of West Virginia prosecutors.

https://wchstv.com/news/local/wva-prosecuting-attorneys-deno...

As far as I understand, the US judicial system is open. How many women have already been held accountable for miscarriages?

A gap in periods could also mean that women body just decided not to bleed this month. It's not common, but it happens, some people have it naturally, some experience it while dieting or overstressed. The physical part of cycle is triggered by hormones, the hormones aren't always there.

Surely they can't prosecute for that.

surely the leopard won’t eat my face

The US didn't get 25% of the world's prison population by not persecuting bullshit cases. If a prosecutor thinks they can get a charge to stick, even if by the barest hair, they will do it. How many people have been charged and thrown in jail over "hair analysis" despite being proven as bunk science multiple times over? With supposed experts failing to differentiate between human and dog hair. And they still use it today to push charges and cases.

If someone is poor and can't afford to fight the case, they are only going to get off by having a slam dunk alibi, and a person's own word is far from a slam dunk alibi. It is even worse with this because nobody has to actually be caught or arrested by a cop. They can pull the info from a database in bulk, send out 1,000 summons, and even if 95% of cases are thrown out, they spent so little money getting people into court that the remaining 5% will be a huge profit for the courts.

The problem here is definitely not that someone has information about who is on their period.

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