Nicola Sturgeon Miscarriage Joke Controversy

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About

The Nicola Sturgeon Miscarriage Joke Controversy refers to controversy surrounding a tweet that was posted on to Twitter by Scottish Conservative member Jane Lax who joked about First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon's miscarriage. After the tweet was posted, it received various amounts of criticism from both Scottish independence supporters and Scottish unionist supporters.

Origin

In 2016, First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, disclosed that she had a miscarriage in 2011 whilst serving as Deputy First Minister of Scotland under the government of Alex Salmond.

On August 20th, 2019, ahead of the annual GERS report being released, which details the financial status of Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, Nicola Sturgeon was interviewed and talked about abuse she received on social media by unionist trolls.

In response to this, a Twitter user disguised under the username, Agent P, a known Twitter troll, had linked the article into a tweet where the user joked

Another user called Femme Sage responded to Agent P and mentioned Nicola Sturgeon's miscarriage and declared it was fake.

Replying to Agent P and Femme Sage, Jane Lax, under the Twitter username, "Janela X" wrote: "Is that when she dropped a book?" followed by three laughing emojis.

Reactions

After posting the tweet, Jane Lax locked her account and was suspended by the Scottish Conservative Party and stripped from her role as Honourary Treasurer of the Moray Conservatives.

SNP Moray demanded an apology from Jane Lax and said that Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives needed to act on the issue.

After being suspended by the Scottish Conservatives, several media outlets such as BBC News, STV News, the Herald, the "Daily Record":www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/vile-tory-troll-suspended-party-18981111/, the National, the Sun and the Daily Mirror reported on the incident.

Nicola Sturgeon's Response

.NicolaSturgeon</a> has welcomed the Scottish Conservatives decision to suspend Tory activist Jane Lax - describing her comments on Twitter as “hurtful” <a href="https://t.co/5qFhPn1hez">pic.twitter.com/5qFhPn1hez</a></p>— Alan Smith (Political_AlanS) August 23, 2019

In response to Jane Lax's comments and subsequent suspension, Nicola Sturgeon welcomed her suspension and said that comments from her were 'hurtful' to not just Nicola, nor her family, but other women who have suffered from miscarriages.