Murder is defined as the unlawful killing of a person. Until the law is changed, it is not murder - in the legal sense.
Murder is defined as the unlawful killing of a person. Until the law is changed, it is not murder - in the legal sense.
Mom Gets Away With Murder, But No One Else Does?
Key Facts on the Unborn Victims of Violence Act -- January 8, 2004
The bill would establish that if an unborn child is injured or killed during the commission of an already-defined federal crime of violence, then the assailant may be charged with a second offense on behalf of the second victim, the unborn child. The exact charge would depend on which federal law is involved, the degree of harm done to the child, and other factors. The bill would apply this two-victim principle to 68 existing federal laws dealing with acts of violence.
The bill explicitly provides that it does not apply to any abortion to which a woman has consented, to any act of the mother herself (legal or illegal), or to any form of medical treatment. Nevertheless, the National Right to Life Committee supports the bill because it achieves other pro-life purposes that are worthwhile in their own right: The protection of unborn children from acts of violence other than abortion, the recognition that unborn children may be victims of such violent criminal acts, and the punishment of those who harm unborn children while engaged in federally prohibited acts of violence.
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act would not supersede state unborn victims laws, nor would it impose such a law in a state that has not enacted one. Rather, the bill applies only to unborn children injured or killed during the course of already-defined federal crimes of violence.
Moreover, in the 1989 case of Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to invalidate a Missouri statute that declares that "the life of each human being begins at conception," that "unborn children have protectable interests in life, health, and well-being," and that all state laws (including criminal laws) "shall be interpreted and construed to acknowledge on behalf of the unborn child at every stage of development, all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of this state," to the extent permitted by the Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court rulings. A lower court had ruled that Missouri’s law "impermissibl[y]" adopted "a theory of when life begins," and blocked its enforcement, but the Supreme Court nullified that ruling, allowing the law to go into effect so long as the state did not use it to restrict abortion.
Yet, on July 25, 2000, the House passed on a vote of 417-0 a bill that contained the same definition of "child in utero" and that embodied the same basic legal principle. That bill, the Innocent Child Protection Act, said that no state or federal authority may "carry out a sentence of death on a woman while she carries a child in utero. . . .‘child in utero’ means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb." The principle embodied in the Innocent Child Protection Act was obvious – carrying out the execution would take two human lives, including one convicted of no crime.
State Homicide Laws that Recognize Unborn Victims -- June 23, 2003
As of January 5, 2004, twenty-eight (28) states have enacted laws which recognize unborn children as human victims of violent crimes covered by state laws. Fifteen (15) of these states provide this protection throughout the period of in utero development, while the other 13 provide protection during certain specified stages of development. These laws are sometimes referred to as "fetal homicide" laws.
One Victim or Two? Results from Three National Polls
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act (S. 1019) would recognize as a legal victim an unborn child who is injured or killed during commission of a federal crime against the baby's mother. A substitute amendment to be offered by Senator Dianne Feinstein would increase penalties for federal crimes against pregnant women - but would recognize only one victim, the mother, and without recognizing any loss of human life if the mother survives the assault. Sharon Rocha, mother of Laci Peterson and grandmother of Conner Peterson, has called such a single-victim proposal "a step away from justice, not toward it." But what does the general public say? If a criminal assaults a woman who carries an unborn child, does that crime have two victims, or only one? Here are three recent national polls on that issue.