The "Pajama People" win one for American women

Who says bloggers don't make a difference?



Maura Keaney reports the happy news at Daily Kos:

Four nights ago, I posted a diary here at DailyKos and a post at Democracy for Virginia titled, "Have Miscarriage, Go to Jail???" about HB1677, a so-called "fetal death reporting" bill that would have required women to report a fetal death within 12 hours or face a up to a year in prison.



Just over an hour ago, the story broke that Delegate Cosgrove will be withdrawing the bill:

Legislation that would have required mothers who had failed to report fetal deaths to the police within 12 hours of the delivery to face a possible misdemeanor sentence will be withdrawn, its patron said on Monday.



"I've elected to withdraw HB 1677 from consideration by the General Assembly this year. The language is just too confusing," Del. John Cosgrove, R-Chesapeake, told The Augusta Free Press.



Cosgrove's surprise move came after a firestorm of controversy spread across the World Wide Web over the weekend about the possible far-reaching effects of the measure.

I don't know if there has ever been this kind of quick victory for citizen bloggers in impacting state legislation. Wow!



The original story here stayed on the Recommended Diary list here for 24 hours and spread like wildfire to over 1,000 blogs, earning particularly impassioned responses on infertility and miscarriage blogs. Hundreds of bloggers added to the story, doing additional research on the issue of "fetal death reporting", "Save Haven" laws, Delegate Cosgrove, and developing point-by-point rebuttals to Cosgrove's response to my initial story.



I received hundreds of emails a day about the story for the past three days. The story was picked up by TV news yesterday and was the lead story on a Richmond station last night. (Video available at link.)



You can read all the updates on the story at http://www.democracyforvirginia.com. Things have moved so quickly, I've barely had time to sleep much less post updates here at DailyKos!



This is entirely a victory of citizen bloggers, including many from the DailyKos community. Thanks to everyone who recommended the diary, commented, cross-posted to other blogs, and worked so hard to inform others about this story and do additional research on it.

Yes, this is about the power of citizen journalists to make a difference, but it's more than that. Keaney heads up Democracy for Virginia, which is an outgrowth of Howard Dean's Democracy for America organization. Yes, THAT Howard Dean -- the guy whose movement the mainstream press and the Democratic Party Establishment has tried mightily to marginalize over the last year.



And yet here is DFA, already succeeding in protecting women in Virginia to have to get law enforcement involved every time they have a miscarriage -- or an abortion, for that matter.



The fact of the matter is that participatory journalism, when combined with grassroots activism, can still effect change -- even in Bush's America. And that's what scares the living daylights out of the DNC hacks and their DLC cronies. And that's why they're pushing Tim Roemer -- a man who values blastocysts over women, who favors privatization of Social Security, and who takes money from a Richard Mellon Scaife-funded think tank -- as DNC Chair.



UPDATE: CNN is reporting that Dean will announce his candidacy for DNC chair at 1 PM today.