Earlier today, the Senate passed the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act", following the House of Representative's lead. This is the first time that the bill, also known as the Laci and Connor Law; has managed to slip through the Senate. It has however, passed in the House previously. The bill, named after Laci Peterson who was brutally murdered while pregnant with her son Connor, is designed to allow for seperate federal prosecution in cases where violence is commited againt a pregnant woman, and results in harm to the fetus. This law only covers 68 types of violent federal crime, including acts of terrorism.
The wording of the law is quite specific, calling the fetus a "member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb." Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who herself sponsored a different version of the bill which only would have allowed for tougher penalties for the attack on the pregnant woman, worries that this new law will pave the way for the dismantlement of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v Wade decision, as well as halt embryonic stem cell research. The new law however includes language explicity preventing the prosecution of abortionists.
NARAL president Kate Michelman echos Senator Feinstein's concerns, believing this is just another step towards the reversal of Roe v Wade, the first coming last year with Congress successfully banning "partial birth abortion", which is now be challenged in the Supreme Court.
She states that this is the "first time in federal law that an embryo or fetus is recognized as a seperate and distinct person under the law, seperate from the woman."
I find irony in the fact that the "pro-choice" advocates are taking issue with a law that punishes the criminals who have taken choice away from their victims. This law in no way circumvents the rights of those women who chose to terminate their pregnancy; it only allows for the punishment of those individuals who have taken that chioce away.
The women who will fall under the protection of this new law have already made their choice. They, like Laci Peterson, chose to have thier child. Someone took that choice from Laci, in addition to murdering her. What currently happens in states, unlike California, that have no seperate protection for the life of the fetus? If a woman were attacked, and survived, but her baby died, is really ONLY an assault?
Roe v Wade protects the woman's right to seek an abortion. No one elses. Not her husband, nor her parents. So why should a complete stranger be able to end her pregnancy, and suffer no consequences? The fetuses covered by this law are wanted by their mothers. They have the right to come into existance (because that is what their mother's chose) and the premature termination of their little lives is a crime, and should be punishable as such.
Nor should scientists devoted to stem cell research be concerned since the wording of the law specifies that the embryo must be "carried in the womb", which does not effect the reseach, which is carried out in test tubes and petri dishes.
Based solely on the principles of common sense, this law should have been enacted quite a while ago. However, with the relentless attacks on the bill as a "right-wing" political prop being used solely to further the casues of the conservative Christians, I must say I'm a little surprised it made it through the gauntlet this time around.