Dead Babies getting birth certificates

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by ISUKappa

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.

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.

[UGAalum94]

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.

[1908Revelations]

To. Each. His. Own.