"This bill recognizes that there are two victims. Americans intuitively know that there is a victim besides the mother." - Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio Senate Passes Fetus Protection Bill By JIM ABRAMS ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - In a major win for social conservatives, Congress is sending to the president legislation that would expand the legal rights of the unborn by making it a separate crime to harm a fetus during an assault on a pregnant woman. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act cleared the Senate on a 61-38 vote Thursday, a month after the House passed the bill and five years after conservatives first tried to move the legislation through Congress. The measure is limited in scope, applying only to harm to a fetus while a federal crime is being committed against the pregnant mother, such as terrorist attacks, drug-related shootings or attacks on federal lands or military bases. But proponents on both sides of the fetal rights and abortion issue saw far-reaching consequences. Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said that with the president's signature, "our nation will be one giant step closer to rebuilding a culture of life, where every child, born and unborn, is given the protections they so clearly deserve." President Bush has urged Congress to send a bill to his desk. But the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, Kate Michelman, said it would be the first time ever in federal law that an embryo or fetus is recognized as a distinct person, separate from the woman. "Much of this is preparing for the day the Supreme Court has a majority that will overrule Roe v. Wade," the 1973 Supreme Court decision affirming a woman's right to end a pregnancy. The legislation earlier in the day came within one vote of failing, when the Senate voted 50-49 to defeat an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. Her provision would have increased penalties for attacks on pregnant women, including bringing murder charges against an assailant whose attack results in the termination of a pregnancy. But the proposal also focused on the harm to the pregnancy rather than attempting to determine when life begins. "Clearly, there is a concerted effort to codify in law the legal recognition that life begins at conception," she said. "If we allow that to happen today, or in any other law, we put the right to choose squarely at risk." The legislation defines an "unborn child" as a child in utero, which it says "means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb." Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Bush's opponent this fall, interrupted his campaign schedule to vote yes on the amendment. He voted no on final passage. Supporters of the legislation insisted it had nothing to do with abortion rights, and cited language in the bill that specifically states that lawful abortions are not subject to prosecution. "It does not affect abortion rights whatsoever," said Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, a chief sponsor. "This bill recognizes that there are two victims," he added. Americans, he said, "intuitively know that there is a victim besides the mother." Supporters of the bill have named it after Laci Peterson and her unborn child, Conner, victims in a highly publicized murder case in California. She was eight months pregnant when she disappeared in December 2002. Police found the bodies of her and the baby months later in the San Francisco Bay. California, one of 29 states with an unborn victims law, is trying Peterson's husband, Scott, on double murder charges. Laci Peterson's stepfather, Ron Grantski, said at a Capitol Hill news conference that he and Laci's mother had received several hundred thousand sympathy cards and "they all mourned our loss of Laci and Conner - not Laci and the fetus." http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-cong/2004/mar/26/032605226.html
This is great news for all Fetal Americans. No longer will they have to cower in their wombs in shadow and fear. Now fetuses will be able to walk the streets at night, safe and secure in the fact that a tough message is being sent to criminals: Crime against fetuses doesn't pay.
I'm just disappointed that marsupial fetuses are not covered. As an FOF (Fetus Only Fan), I'm still a little skeptical of this bill.
Certain bigots like B-Bob often use the false argument that "a pouch is protection enough" when lobbying congrees for discriminatory anti-marsupial laws. Sadly in this case he was successful.
Another huge step toward banning abortion. Women shouldn't be making any decisions about their bodies anyway. They're baby machines who should be controlled by men who know better.
i think he pretty much knew that. sometimes i wonder if i should be supporting bush because sometimes i think he/his administration do things to too much of an extreme, but then i realize people like GV are on the other side and think "how can i be wrong?"
The case here in Houston in which the man confessed to killing his pregnant girlfriend after seeing "The Passion of Christ" is going to be one of the first tried under this new law.
But it happened before the law was passed. BTW, life never begins. The question itself is faulty. We are just a continuation.
her huge step toward banning abortion. I dunno... I think this is perfectly reasonable. I think the pro-choice movement hurts itself when it rejects anything and everything that might protect fetuses or limit the anything-goes concept of abortions (for example, opposing parental notification). Similarly, I think the pro-life movement hurts itself when it uses the "if you have an abortion, you're a sinner going to hell" argument. Both sides just make themselves look like they are more concerned with their own influence than actually coming up with and improving workable policies that benefit the person dealing with a potential abortion.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2470292 March 27, 2004, 10:01AM 'Passion' case may test new law Murder suspect could be state's 1st prosecution in death of fetus By RON NISSIMOV and ERIC HANSON Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle an Leach II -- who police said was so moved by the The Passion of the Christ movie that he confessed to killing his girlfriend -- may be the first person prosecuted under a state law defining a fetus as a person, experts said Friday. The law, which took effect Sept. 1, could be the difference between life and death for the 21-year-old Rosenberg man, who is charged with murder. Investigators are trying to determine if the victim, Ashley Nicole Wilson, 19, was pregnant when she died in January. If so, Leach could face a capital murder charge in the slaying of two people during the same act. Capital murder is punishable by death, while murder carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Fort Bend County District Attorney John Healey refused Friday to speculate whether a capital murder charge would be filed. "The investigation will continue to gather any evidence that will further clarify whether or not Miss Wilson was pregnant at the time of her death," Healey said. In a jailhouse interview Friday, Leach told the Rosenberg Herald-Coaster that there were other factors besides the movie that led him to confess. He said a discussion with a minister friend was one. "And so, after watching that movie, I was very emotional, and so I thought about the things I had done," he said. Ralph Gonzalez, lawyer for Leach, said he is eager to obtain a copy of the autopsy report. Beverly Begay, chief examiner with the Harris County medical examiner's office in Houston, declined to comment Friday on whether an autopsy showed Wilson to be pregnant. Begay referred all questions to law enforcement authorities. Fort Bend County Justice of the Peace Fay Dettling said she has not received a final autopsy report. "I ordered a full autopsy, and that is what I expect to get," she said Friday. Sheriff's investigators said Thursday that officials with the medical examiner's office told detectives Wilson was not pregnant. Wilson's parents, Renee Wilson Coulter and Dan Wilson, have said the doctor who performed the autopsy told them their daughter was not pregnant. But they say they have medical records from their daughter's physician showing she was six to eight weeks pregnant. A letter written by the slain woman found at her Richmond apartment first led authorities to believe she hanged herself. In the letter, Wilson said she was despondent because she was pregnant and the father did not want to help raise the child. But earlier this month, Leach told Fort Bend County Sheriff's Department detectives that he strangled the woman and made the death appear to be a suicide because she told him she was pregnant with his child. Leach told police he learned how to disguise the killing from the television crime show CSI. But he said he wanted to seek "redemption," authorities said, after seeing Mel Gibson's controversial movie, which depicts Christ's final hours of suffering in gruesome detail. In the Herald-Coaster interview, Leach said a series of "pricks in his heart" from God compelled him to confess. "I knew I was wrong in doing it when I did it," he is quoted as saying. "I knew I was wrong in not going forward with it immediately. I knew throughout several occasions, when it came to mind, that I needed to do something about it." Joe Pojman, executive director for the Austin-based Texas Alliance for Life, said if Fort Bend County authorities prosecute Leach in the death of the fetus, Leach would be the first person he knows of who would be prosecuted under the new Texas law. He said a pregnant woman was slain in Round Rock in October but there are no arrests in that case. The organization, which opposes abortion and assisted suicide, helped draft the law and has lobbied for its passage since 1999, Pojman said. An individual is defined by Texas statutes as a being who is alive -- including an unborn child at every stage of gestation, from conception to birth. Pojman said more than half of the states have laws protecting fetuses from violence, but Texas has one of the strongest because it defines all stages of gestation as a human life. The Texas law also allows civil lawsuits if negligence causes the harm or death of a fetus. The law specifically exempts abortion providers from prosecution and does not allow the mother to be prosecuted, Pojman said. State Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, the only person who voted against the bill, said she is concerned that the broad definition of a fetus as life could be used to narrow abortion rights. She proposed an alternative bill that would have enhanced criminal punishment against anyone who injured or killed a fetus, without defining it as a living person. Pojman said such enhancements would not have led to the possible imposition of capital murder charges if a pregnant woman is killed. He said California has had a similar law since the 1970s and abortion rights have not been curtailed
Okay, I was wondering the samething Mr. Meowgi was wondering. Does the New Bill have anything to do with the legality of the Texas Law?
Ok, I get it. I'm surprised that it took this long for there to be a case like this in all of Texas. I guess that is a good thing. I do find it ironic that if found guilty of Capital murder, he might also be killed. But I guess if god compelled him to confess, that's what god wants... I really don't have a problem with this law. If abortion is about a woman's right to choose safely, then she also has the right to choose to have the child. It is just sad that people think more killing is an answer to killing. Also, to define a fetus as a separate entity from it's mother is not completely correct, imo.
The new bill makes it a federal crime. It is fairly limited in scope in that the fetus has to be harmed in the commission of a federal crime such as terrorism, drug related offense or a crime that occurs on federal ground. The Texas case would not be able to be tried under the propsed federal law. 29 states currently have laws on the books which deal with harm to fetuses. For instance, Scott Peterson is charged with 2 murders out in California - his wife and their unborn child.
