In 37 States, It’s Illegal For a Pregnant Woman to Fall Down the Stairs

Christine Taylor, a pregnant woman from Iowa who became lightheaded and fell down her stairs on January 19, found herself arrested and jailed for attempting to kill her fetus. Disturbing much? The awful thing is that this is actually legal. Iowa is one of the 37 states in the country with a “feticide” law, which criminalizes the intentional termination of a pregnancy without the knowledge or consent of the pregnant person. These laws were, for the most part, written to explicitly protect pregnant women from being prosecuted – but as Taylor’s case proves, they can easily be turned against pregnant women who admit doubt and uncertainty about their pregnancies.

What happened with Taylor: the mother of two girls, pregnant with a third, was estranged from her husband when she fell down the stairs. She was taken to the hospital to make sure that her fetus was unharmed, and while there, she confessed fear about raising three children alone to the nurse who was there.

“I never said I didn’t want my baby, but I admitted that I had been considering adoption or abortion,” she said. “I admit that I said I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue the pregnancy. My husband sends me money, but money doesn’t make a parent. I don’t have anybody else to turn to.”

The nurse called the doctor who called the police, and Taylor found herself in jail – for the “crime” of admitting her very real fears to the nurse. According to the Des Moines Register, “Police said in a report she fell intentionally because she did not want any more children with her husband.” It was only after reviewing the facts of the case for three weeks that prosecutors decided not to charge her with a crime. Her baby was unharmed.

This case raises obvious problems with confidentiality – as Lynn Paltrow of National Advocates for Pregnant Women told the newspaper, “You want women to be able to talk to their doctors without being accused as a baby killer. Transforming some mothers’ obviously difficult and painful circumstances into a crime would make every pregnant woman in this country vulnerable to criminal prosecution.”

But the truly disturbing part of this is that the police were called because the nurse believed that Taylor was in the first week of her third trimester – when in fact she was still in her second. Assistant Des Moines County Attorney Lisa Taylor said the attempted feticide charge was dropped because Christine Taylor’s doctor confirmed she was in her second trimester.

Wait, what? So Taylor could have been charged if she had been a few weeks further in her pregnancy? We’re not protecting the lives of unborn children by prosecuting their mothers ferociously – or by breaking confidentiality, or by imposing our own values and fears onto people we don’t know. Even if Taylor had been in her third trimester, she should not have been arrested, and the nurse should not have told the doctor or called the police. This egregious breach of privacy shouldn’t be masked under the cloak of how far along Taylor was in her pregnancy. It was a horrifying encroachment on pregnant women’s rights – and needs to be recognized.

Read more: abortion, Feticide, pregnant women, womens rights

Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Tina S.

8:39PM PST on Nov 7, 2010

I have always been quite clumsy on stairs. My personal record for sliding down on them is three times between 10 am and 12 pm on the 3rd of December, 1974!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am not exaggerating!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The amount of times I have fallen down them from, oh my, the age of 4 or 5, or the amount of times I have tripped over my own feet is unbelievable! Especially when you consider that I was studying to be a ballet dancer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I fell down the stair with my first two; stepped in water and fell, almost breaking my leg with the last one, (the one in the photo with me). Should I have been put in jail for all of this????? How absurd can we get??????

Life is precious! All life is! So is the life of women! I don't believe in abortion for any reason; but I don't believe that people should be put in jail because they fell down the stairs. Pregnant women are delicate creatures needing love, tenderness and acceptance. If we received this, then a lot of things would be different. I could go on........and on......and on....... Let us begin to think with our hearts!

send a green star

Cindy C.

1:04PM PDT on Aug 28, 2010

Okay listen up. I have epilepsy. While in my eighth month with my daughter I had a seizure. I went unconscious and fell down two flights of stairs. My daughter was born 12 hours later. She was over 7 pounds. Tell me what I should have been arrested for - anyone know?

Paula J.

5:29PM PST on Mar 7, 2010

Something worse.In Virginia,as long as the baby is still attached to you by the umbilical cord you can go to term,deliver,and then LEGALLY kill your newborn child. You can shoot it,strangle it,smother it,etc. I know this because it recently happened here in Va. and I was so outraged I was calling everyone I could think of. I even notified Nancy Grace,and Jane Velez Mitchell to try to get the word out there.This was so clearly MURDER,but the police said no crime commited,their hands are tied because of state laws,and the mother's name was not given to protect her identity. They then proceeded to give the family the "remains" for proper burial. How outrageous is that?There was an outcry for a change in the law,promises were made,but as far as I know nothing has changed.I still get angry just thinking of it.So anybody want to do their child in,Va.is the place to be-just keep that umbilical cord attached! Horrible.

Chandra K.

5:04PM PST on Feb 26, 2010

What the f...?!

Gawaine R.

9:33AM PST on Feb 24, 2010

The death of a fetus due to violent assault upon the mother was long known in common law. The guilty party in such a case was the man or person providing the beating, not the woman! This turns common law on its head.
Worse, all hospital records are strictly confidential unless a judge gives an order to grant access to them. This hospital violated her rights and should be sued. This poor woman has learned a cynical truth: keep as quiet as you can when talking to nurses and doctors.

Charlene M.

9:17AM PST on Feb 24, 2010

Laws like this exist because we do live in a mad faithless godless world.
The unborn child needs protection just ask a child that survived an abortion and lived to tell their story.

Dan M.

9:50PM PST on Feb 22, 2010

"a "feticide" law, which criminalizes the intentional termination of a pregnancy without the knowledge or consent of the pregnant person."

This does not make sense. How could a pregnant person terminate her OWN pregnancy, WITHOUT also being aware that she was intending or doing such a thing? The "victim" must be unaware, for there to be a crime. Or at the very least, she must at least deny her consent -- which doesn't hold up for any but the batshit crazy.

The "victim" must be unaware of the "attempt at termination," for the defendant to be found guilty. If this is indeed what the law says, then there is no way she could be found guilty, even if she DID do it on purpose, without a quite unseemly shift of her legal identity from that of the defendant/assailant, to that of the (unknowing!) "victim" of the assault, once the fall was unavoidably under way.

And at what point would those legal and mental gymnastics occur? When could one say that the woman had definitively passed the point of attacking her later self, and had turned into her own unwitting victim?

Gimme a break. I think this charge had more wrong with it than just the trimester.