Miscarriage equals murder?

What is wrong with people in the US?

From Alternet, posted (without irony) on US Independence Day, July 4, 2011

Rennie Gibbs is accused of murder, but the crime she is alleged to have committed does not sound like an ordinary killing. Yet she faces life in prison in Mississippi over the death of her unborn child.

Gibbs became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006 in a stillbirth when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy. When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit – though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby's death – they charged her with the "depraved-heart murder" of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence

When this article was posted on Reddit, there was a number of comments, but I'd particually liked this one from 'icarusone'

Prison terms are generally used as either a deterrent or a rehabilitation program.

As a deterrent, it probably doesn't work. (Lots of articles have shown that abortion rates do not differ substantially regardless of legality. [And yes, that was the first article Google spit up. However, if you keep searching, you'll find that it's not an isolated idea.])

As a rehabilitation program, I think it's self evident that this is not going to "teach them a lesson." At best, they will emerge from prison with a criminal record, shattered employment prospects and a difficulty reintergrating into regular society. At worst, think prison assault, loss of family and social support, potential suicide.

If your aim is truly to help anybody the only reasonable options to support are health and sex education. Criminalizing these women is ludicrous.