Society Overlooks the Grief of Miscarriages

* I am writing in response to the article “Drive-By Attack Seen as Fetus Murder Test Case” (June 20).

I have had six miscarriages, all 20 weeks or under. Although death certificates are not issued by the Health Department for the loss of a fetus prior to 20 weeks without petition from a physician, my husband and I chose to seek death certificates and held memorial services after the three latest losses because we felt these rituals validated both the life and death of our children lost to miscarriage.

Miscarriage is not recognized in our society as a death. The pain and grief of families who suffer miscarriage are not validated by a society that views our losses as non-losses or merely inconveniences, that uses terms for our babies like products of conception, that expects those of us who have miscarriages to quietly go back to work or home to cook dinner and chalk it up as just one of those things.

It is hard to reconcile that the state considers the loss of a fetus by gunshot to be a punishable death but the loss of my babies through miscarriage does not warrant a death certificate.

KAREN CAMPBELL

Carlsbad