Virginia Senator Mark Obenshein (R-Harrisonburg) has introduced a bill that would require women to report a miscarriage to law enforcement authorities. Violations would be a Class I misdemeanor (punishable by up to a year in jail). Seriously:

Requires that when a fetal death occurs without medical attendance upon the mother at or after the delivery or abortion, the mother or someone acting on her behalf, within 24 hours, report the fetal death, location of the remains, and identity of the mother to the local or state police or sheriff’s department of the city or county where the fetal death occurred. The bill also specifies that no one shall remove, destroy, or otherwise dispose of any remains without the express authorization of law-enforcement officials or the medical examiner, and that a violation of this section is a Class 1 misdemeanor.

Now about a third of pregnancies end in miscarriages and most of those occur before a woman even is aware she’s pregnant. A large number of those that don’t fall into that category afflict women who are trying — sometimes desperately — to have a child. Miscarriages can be dangerous to a woman’s health and even if not, are often traumatic.

So the party of “small government” now wants to make sure the government can track who is pregnant and for whatever reason doesn’t end up bearing a live child. To what purpose?

Alas, Obenshein legislation doesn’t say, but we can guess.

Idiot.