Really Virginia?

I heard some legal commentator discussing this law and they said that it was put in place in Virginia because the silly system in that state was trying to prosecute women for still births.

 

I can't believe there are actually people on this thread that don't find what she did morally reprehensible regardless of position on abortion.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised ... this section of the forum always is the lowest common denominator of the bbs.

 

Speak for yourself, chump, not all of us have 225 utterly unremarkable posts here, much like the previous one, and even manage to mix in a complex thought or a joke here and there.

 

thanks for your monthly reminder that everyone in here sucks and you're too good for it. i'm sure i speak for everyone else on this forum when i say i appreciate your condescension.

 

that is a really, really weak and ignorant cop-out.

there are literally thousands of agencies that do exactly that. Heck, in most states(last I remembered) you can drop a baby off at a church, police dept, fire dept etc... and no charges will be filed.(infant drop off laws)

next cliche retort?

 

Glad you understand

 

Sounds like somebody has been thumped in the D&D too many times and is a little bitter about it.

Don't let the door hit ya, Josh!

 

rimbaud speaks with wisdom.

 

I found it odd that the only "source" for this story came from WSLS 10 - On Your Side! After looking through 10 pages of a Google search, at the top of page 11 was twhy's opening post. That's when I quit looking. Every other "source" was a blog or right-wing rag of some kind. One would imagine that this would be a big story, so why hasn't the national media picked it up? The link twhy provided included headlines like ObamaCare and 2010: Whither the “bounce”, Gun sales surge, violent crime drops, Madness Takes Its Toll: Democrats Play Psycho-Politics in the Health-Care Debate, ObamaCare: How the Senate GOP blew its chance and, my favorite, Democrat Senator Says Nazi-like Republicans ‘Ruined’ Christmas (this was a real jewel... the Senator said nothing of the kind). So forgive me if I take this story with a grain of salt. If true, it is truly horrible and the act of a person that clearly deserves to be institutionalized, and I can think of no supporter of women's rights, as I am, that would condone it.

In short, a lot of steam rising from the kettle, but where's the tea?

 

I was inclined to think the same thing, given that it came from a blog. But, the news show has an interview with a primary source, the sheriff, who narrates the essential parts of the story. I see no reason he would be lying or grossly mistaken on the case.

 

Sadly, there are numerous cases of women doing something crazy upon coming to term every year. What makes this unusual, assuming everything is on the level, is that Virginia law doesn't consider this a crime. That's pretty amazing.

 

perhaps the real story then is why it's not a bigger story?

it could be added as an option to this poll.

 

I'm not really that amazed, what do you think the stats are on "baby out but umbilical cord still attached" cases of abuse do you think there are in Virginia per year? maybe like .00001% of all births? Statutes drafted in any way (apparently this has something to do with stillborn babies according to previous poster) will naturally have unintended consequences.

EDIT: For what it's worth, I spent a few minutes looking over the Va Criminal Code and I can't find anything that seems to fit the definition of this so-called loophole. Does anybody have it?

 

Yeah I don't think it's all that amazing or all that horrible. The crime itself is horrible and it sucks this mother will get away with it, but when the law was drafted I don't think the legislators were considering the remote possibility of a child being born with the chord still attached and the mother then proceeding to murder it. That has to be a pretty rare crime, so when they drafted this law they just missed a possibility.

I've now heard it twice (once on the radio and once on tv) that the law was originally drafted because Virginia was prosecuting mothers for stillborn children. That seems crazy to me (Really Virginia?) but I'm trying to find it in print somewhere.

 

The only thing that comes close is their partial birth abortion statute - I can't find any "umbilical cord still attached" loophole, in fact it seems to expressly rule it out, though it's a confusing statute:

 

So if the mother had cut the umbilical cord first and then suffocated the baby it's a murder????

Definitely not right. A mother who is capable of suffocating a baby after it is outside the womb really should be punished severely.

I am pro-choice, but I am against third trimester abortions unless the mother's health is at risk.

 

I searched the entire Va code for "umbilical" and you only get 3 hits, the one I posted, and two unrelated admin/record-keeping related statutes.


If that's all there is, I think it may be the sheriff etc misusing/misunderstanding the term "loophole" or the statute itself.

 

I think that might exactly be it - fetal murder has to be a third party murderer.

But reading the partial birth statute, I cant' think of any reason why a fact pattern as alleged here couldn't result in a prosecution of the mother absent some quirk of statutory interpretation that I am missing. Still a very serious offensse (class 4 felony), though not as serious as fetal murder (class 2 felony)