How can anyone that supports abortion rights be for this bill? This bill is totally inconsistent with the legality of abortion. Either abortion is okay, and this law is not, or the other way around. You can't have it both ways: Proposal Aimed at Fetus Deaths Proposal aimed at fetus deaths By Cynthia Cieluch Express-News Staff Writer The Texas Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would apply criminal penalties in cases in which injuries cause the death of a fetus. "It is unjust to tell a pregnant woman that if someone takes an unborn child from her, that there is no legal recourse," said Sen. Stephen Ogden, R-Bryan, the bill's sponsor. "I think it's an obvious loophole in the law." The bill's passage came just one day after gunfire caused a pregnant San Antonio teen, Roxanne Guajardo, to lose her 6-month-old fetus. As Guajardo recovered in a San Antonio hospital, her grief-stricken grandmother, Tomasa Rangel, praised the bill. "They say it's just a fetus, but it's a human. They should be punished because it is a crime," Rangel said, adding that she went ahead and named the fetus "Julie Destiny." Under current Texas law, a person can be charged only with causing the death of an individual, not a fetus. An individual is defined as "a human being who has been born and is alive." While Texas has no criminal penalty for injury to a fetus, 27 other states have laws that make the wrongful death of an unborn child a felony. The Texas bill, which passed in the Senate by a 25-5 vote, proposes to create a felony offense for causing bodily injury to a pregnant woman. The penalty will increase if the injury causes the woman to suffer a miscarriage or stillbirth. Filed long before Guajardo was shot, Ogden's bill still needs to be passed by the House before it can become law. No date has yet been set for debate in the House. "I hope it doesn't die this time," said Ogden, who has proposed the bill unsuccessfully during each legislative session since 1995. "This is a hard bill to pass, but we're making progress." The death Sunday of Guajardo's fetus added fuel to an old and intense debate. In urging his colleagues to vote for the measure, Ogden brought a copy of Tuesday's Express-News story on the shooting to the Senate floor. On Sunday morning, Guajardo, an honor student at Healy Murphy Center, was shot in the abdomen and left arm while riding in a car on the 900 block of Hot Wells Boulevard. A day later, she gave birth to a dead fetus. Police arrested Juan Esparza, 19, on Monday and charged him with two counts of aggravated assault in connection with the alleged attack on Guajardo and her 18-year-old friend. Esparza remained in Bexar County Jail in lieu of posting a $200,000 bond. Opponents argued that the bill would unfairly put abortion doctors at risk of prosecution. "We don't want the bill to pass as it is," said Kae McLaughlin, executive director of Texas Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, arguing that physicians could be forced to prove that each abortion they perform is legal. Joe Pojman, executive director of Greater Austin Right to Life, who champions the bill, said he believes the bill is long overdue. "It's such a slap in the face to say that (a fetus) is not a life. It's time for the Legislature to address the problem that has been around for a long time, that a woman's choice to give birth to a child is not protected."
Agreed, Freak. What I don't understand is how a legislator could support a bill like this, yet be opposed to a Hate Crimes Bill. This bill is ridiculous as it is currently written, and should be voted down. ------------------ "Blues is a Healer" --John Lee Hooker [This message has been edited by RocketMan Tex (edited February 21, 2001).] [This message has been edited by RocketMan Tex (edited February 21, 2001).]
Ahhh what a joke! First a fetus is not a living life form, now it is. Do i get to pick whenever it best fits my scenario? ------------------ Nice guys finish last ... and im surely not going to finish last!
It's possible to have a difference of opinion when it comes to something like 'hate crimes'. A case can be made for both sides. It is not consistent, however, to protect a human lifeform in one instance (the proposed bill), and not in another (abortion).
Yes, I've brought this up before. I just think it's an issue that everyone wants to ignore, mainly because it shows that there is something wrong with abortion being legal. Basically, this girl had her 6 month old fetus killed, and the perpetrator can only be charged with assault. The reason, of course, is abortion. It doesn't seem to bother anyone though. The thing is, if you support abortion rights, you have to call this an assault and nothing more.
I think you can support abortion and still support this bill as well. Perhaps you won't be able to call killing a fetus homicide, but why couldn't you make it illegal? If you say a fetus isn't alive, you still can't say it doesn't exist. You can't say the woman hasn't lost anything. And if a thing exists and is destroyed in an assault, that should be a prosecutable offense. Now, I'd agree they could be a lot more consistent if they'd recognize that fetuses are alive and call abortions homicides (even then, you wouldn't have to make them illegal -- not every homicide is a murder), but I still think you can have it both ways. ------------------ RealGM Rockets Draft Obligations Summary Gafford Art Artisan
Outstanding point, JuanValdez. I think there are very few pro-choice people that would disagree that it is wrong to kill a fetus. If you truly are pro-choice, than you have to support a woman's right to choose to have a baby as strongly as you support her right to choose to have an abortion. Anyone else making that choice for her, be it a government (like China), parents, upset boyfriend, or person just recklessly shooting a gun, is wrong. I think that's something that pro-life and pro-choice people agree on. (Tom Clancy made this case very well in his latest book as part of a sub-plot. If you get a chance, you should read it.) The discrepancies come in when people try to justify abortion by saying a fetus is just a piece of tissue, and isn't alive until it pops out. I really would question whether anyone really believes that -- I'd imagine that most of the women who have abortions don't feel that way, and view it as a very painful and personal issue. Yet this is the argument used by many pro-choice advocates, and it just can't be reconciled with fetal homicide laws. Perhaps if we recognized a fetus as a living person, and recognized the ability of women to choose to have an abortion or a child, we could have stronger fetal protection laws. It's an emotional struggle to match these issues, but is probably closer to how most people actually feel. ------------------ Stay Cool...
If you recognize a fetus as a person then abortion is killing a person, which happens to be illegal. You can't say that a fetus is not a person in the instance of abortion but yet it is a person when an assault occurs. ------------------ "Relax... kids swallow quarters all the time. If she craps out two dimes and a nickel then start worrying!" -Grumpier Old Men
If you recognize a fetus as a person then abortion is killing a person, which happens to be illegal. Not true. There are plenty of instances when killing a person, inadvertantly or not, is legal. ------------------ Is it any coincidence that the Cato is the only Rocket with a temperature scale named after him? I didnt think so!!!!
Juan how is this any different than assualting someong and they lose their hearing? Their sight? and arm? If you going to make the Fetus *special* then be consistant . . .do it in all cases not just when it suits a political adgenda This bill is nothing more than a MAKE ME LOOK GOOD AS A CONGRESSMAN BILL . .. it is bull**** and trife Rocket River ------------------
Well... aren't you just a smartypants today. In all seriousness, if I'm not mistaken I think there is a legal standard for when a fetus is or is not a life. I don't know how this new law would be able to flip flop over that standard. ------------------ "Relax... kids swallow quarters all the time. If she craps out two dimes and a nickel then start worrying!" -Grumpier Old Men
River, I'm not sure where we disagree. I would like a law that would punish killing fetuses as a maiming -- like you would for a person losing their sight in an assault. I don't think that makes the fetus *special* in providing a punishment for its destruction but rather makes it *unspecial* by taking away its unique ability to be destroyed with impunity. And I'm not even arguing for an abortion law at all. It would not at all be hard to protect abortion doctors from prosecution under this law. I have no agenda here -- just looking to make a sensible law about assault. Did you glean from my post somehow that I was prolife? Tiiming, apparently the standard is to be a human who was born and is alive. From what I gather though, they don't want to call it a murder -- though they don't say what they do want to call it. ------------------ RealGM Rockets Draft Obligations Summary Gafford Art Artisan
Everything is relative to people. It is difficult to assert the correct way of procedure to those who feel strongly. Sometimes you have to agree that what is something in a certain sitation is different in another situation. ------------------ Sometimes you gotta do the next best thing!
Freak: ever hear the expression "can't see the forest for the trees." This human child was killed. If you instinctively find that sad or reprehensible, how can you support abortion rights (except in medical emergencies)? ------------------ Time is a great teacher-- only problem is it kills all its pupils. PowerbizOnline.com
Why do you qualify you statement with "(except in medical emergencies)?" Automatically you are making a judgment. If its a fetus' right to be given the chance for life and the right to live, then by the same token it should be for every instance right? No matter what the circumstances. If the only instance for abortion is when the mother's life is at stake, your making a choice that her life is more important than the fetus, right? Why should someone else have the right to make that judgment and deny that same right to the person who is carrying that fetus? ------------------ Everything you do, effects everything that is.
Freak, haven't you brought this up before? Not trying to be rude, just cannot remember if you did (perhaps in regard to a different state). It is a definite contradiction. ------------------ Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it. " " " " "
Freak: I TOTALLY agree! ------------------ "You know what they say about the music business. Here today, gone TODAY! - Chris Rock at the MTV Music Video Awards
This has come up on the BBS recently -- when someone in Arkansas was charged with the murder of a fetus. The two arguements are very hard to reconcile. The state lawmakers don't have to though, because the Supreme Court took the issue of abortion away from them. What I find bizarre is the arguement by opponents of the bill about physicians being charged with the crime. Excuse me, but doctors already have to get consent for any medical procedure. They are very careful with elective procedures, and probably even more careful with abortions. Any doctor who performed an unauthorized abortion now could be charged under existing laws -- maybe not with murder, but they could forget about practicing medicine ever again. ------------------ Stay Cool...
Wow it certainly does seem like a contradiction. If this ever becomes law they should just send it right up to the Supreme Court to test this one out. I'd love to hear that argument. ------------------ "Relax... kids swallow quarters all the time. If she craps out two dimes and a nickel then start worrying!" -Grumpier Old Men
