Exactly my point. A woman can say she gave birth to an alien for all I care. But the involvement of the government is the upsetting part. It's co-dependence and a forced justification.

-Rudey

But as PP said, on a living child's birth certificate, you are required to list ALL previous births, living or still. So why is this such a weird thing? :confused: If they aren't real, why do you have to put them the living child's document?

Some states must issue birth certificates to stillborn babies because I've seen several that say "This child was born __alive __dead on month-date-year".

I would assume it's because the document is concerned about the women giving birth, not what she gives birth to. But I don't know.

-Rudey

You mean like maybe a London Broil?:rolleyes: Did you really just post that?

My birth certificate and those of my kids are titled "Certificate of Live Birth", which we shorten to birth certificate when we refer to it. The name of it would have to change if it was not a "live birth". I do know that, in Michigan, there is a set gestational age for the necessity of naming a baby and issuing a death certificate in the case of a miscarriage/still birth. I'm not certain what the cut point is but the number 32 weeks is in my head.

I don't think that to them, a piece of paper from the government is compensation for their losing a child. I do believe it is an important avenue or symbol in which they can express their grief.

There's a dead baby joke in here somewhere, I just know it.

Yes I did and as emotional as your comment may be, it's not valid and you know it. Perhaps a medical condition can arise from having too many births. Whatever it is. But whether the baby is alive or dead, or a long broil wouldn't matter in my mind. Forcing the government to do that is paramount to trying to get validity for a particular belief. And to me, that belief is disturbing because as James points out I find it strange that you celebrate a baby that is dead with a scrapbook and more. And as much as I want to say we're all entitled to our opinions, getting the government involved makes my opinion null and void.

-Rudey

But that's messed up in itself, it seems to me.

Why would a birth certificate be more significant than a death certificate as far as validating a person as real?

I don't think the government should be in the "symbols of grief" business. If a church or family wants to mark the birth with a certificate or document, that would be a fine avenue or symbol for expressing grief, but pushing to change the laws in states that don't currently do this is seeking something from the government that the government has no business doing.

Birth certificates make sense in terms of creating the first records of a person's legal existence. I can see the state's interest in that. But in cases in which the record is ended before it legally begins, it's hard to make a case why the gov't should do this. A death certificate dispenses with the legitimate legal interest of the state, as near as I can tell.

(If the state doesn't recognize the legal personhood of the baby in the womb, for the most part, why should it be issuing documents that the recognize the baby's personhood retroactively?

And in case anyone is interested, if Alphagamuga ran the world, abortions would be severely restricted and we WOULD recognized the legal personhood of people in utero. But so far no one has appointed me Queen of the Universe and third trimester abortions can even be performed in some cases. If the state would not issue a birth certificate for an aborted fetus of the same age, it's really hard for me to see how the disposition of the mother towards the baby and the method of extraction of the fetus should change the response of the gov't to the occasion. )

Trying to make people feel better isn't a good enough reason for the government to do something, in my opinion.

I don't think it's obsessive. I don't know if under similar circumstances, I would want a photo and knowing that the babies in the photos are dead freaks me out a little, but it actually makes more sense to me as far as validating the idea of a real person and traditional mourning than wanting a birth certificate.

If you had a child who lived outside the womb and then died, you'd probably look photos from when he or she was alive. Since these parents don't have the option of the picture of the live baby, a photo of the body is the only way to remember, I guess.

ETA: I'm not sure why I was re-reading this, but there used to be a post about a certain kind of photography that I was responding to.

To. Each. His. Own.

This is what strikes me weird about this as well. I know people have their own ways of grieving and dealing with things, but it seems a bit far to get the government involved.

Okay that's BS, I spent a good 20 minutes finding those links yesterday and now they're gone.
I'm reposting this one because I think it's relevant and a testimony to how crazy parents of stillborns can be:

NSFW
http://www.babyphotoretouch.com

This link contains pictures of stillborns, before and after photoshop. If you cannot handle looking at a dead baby or you're at work, do not click on it.

Also http://www.miscarriagesoflove.com

This may be NSFW, if only for the crappy music in the background.

This woman had 14 miscarriages and now she has a website dedicated to her dead fetuses (is it even a fetus at 7 weeks? because it seems like they all made it to 7 weeks and then died).

I agree. Nobody made anyone look. You were very clear about they contained, and it was closely related to a central issue in the thread.

I'm choosing not to look at this webpage, but I think anybody on here who prays should say a prayer for this woman.