I agree. Here’s more fuel for the fire.
Ohio Teen Charged With Murder, Killed Girlfriend’s Baby After Abortion Refusal
Life News ^ | August 15, 2007 | Steven Ertelt
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1882182/posts
Posted on 08/16/2007 12:49:25 PM PDT by NYer
Cincinnati, OH (LifeNews.com) — An Ohio teenager accused of attacking his pregnant girlfriend and killing her unborn child after she refused to have an abortion will be charged with murder. Alfonso Price, a 15-year-old, allegedly attacked Kerria Anderson, 18, because she refused to have an abortion of her baby who Price fathered.
In this case, it seems the murder charge is just to put as much weight behind an assault charge as possible. He assaulted his pregnant girlfriend with intent to abort a fetus, a girl whom presumably trusted him. This is more heinous than a fist-fight in a bar and more criminal weight should be applied - even though the physical crime may not differ much.
It’s the same strategy with hate crimes, which get a bad rap around here. Hates crimes are charged on top of other crimes to simply provide more weight to a charge - in that case, to punish the terrorizing of an already intimidated group. The heightened disruption of the public sphere by a terrorizing offense requires a weightier charge than one which does not terrorize others. Hate crime is, however, a poor moniker.
For example, a killer could kill redheads because he hated redheads. This would almost certainly not elicit a hate crime charge though because redheads are not typically threatened or intimidated. Of course, other minority groups already are threatened and intimidated for being who they are. A crime against them for being who they are can terrorize the community - and should carry a heavier charge.