OK, so it looks like these are the facts:
1: Jones attacked Jemison. This would support an indictment for assualt.
2: Jemison shot Jones. This does not support an indictment, because this action was taken in self-defense.
But if we accept the premises that Alabama is working under, then the facts continue:
3: Jemison also shot the fetus. The fetus was not attacking Jemison, and in fact posed no threat to her whatsoever. This cannot be self-defense. If killing the fetus is a crime, then how did Jemison not commit that crime?
Further thought: One of the folks quoted in the article points out that, by this precedent, a woman could also be charged for providing inadequate prenatal medical care. But Alabama has also done everything in their power to stop poor folks from getting medical care (including, specifically, prenatal care).
Justice would be to charge all of those politicians for the murder of those fetuses who died because of their policies. But justice ain’t gonna be what we’re gonna get.
Wisconsin is also pretty funky, watched Wisconsin Death Trip [it is from a book of the same name] and was highly amused - who knew Cheeslandia was so funky!
If this becomes the practice of the land, eventually laws will be passed forcing pregnant women to stay in the house and do nothing until they give birth. If she goes outside, she might expose the “child” to unsafe chemicals in the air.
What if you start a fight with someone and they shoot at you in what seems like justifiable self defense and the bullet misses you or goes through you and kills your child who was behind you at the time? Are you liable for instigating in your child’s presence?
I think that if you brought your child with you someplace and then started a fight, it’s possible you could be charged with child endangerment. Obviously, I don’t think that would apply to bringing your fetus someplace, but I’m not an Alabama legislator.
What if she had been holding a child in her arms instead of being pregnant? When the shooting have been deemed justified? If she was obviously pregnant, then the shooter, by Alabama law, fired at both a mother and her child.
That’s not generally true I’ve read numerous news stories where a parent or boyfriend left a firearm unsecured and the kid got a hold of it and killed themselves or another child, and usually from what I’ve see an adult is charged.
I believe that it is a GOP “fact” that there are no unsafe chemicals in the air, therefore she is allowed to go outside and drive to the grocery store to buy the ingredients to make her husband’s dinner when he comes home from his job working for that nice Mr. Drysdale.
Does the fact that it’s your kid matter? Say you start that fight with someone who then shoots “at you in what seems like justifiable self-defense and the bullet misses you or goes through you and kills” — someone else altogether: you don’t know her, the shooter doesn’t know her; maybe she just happens to be walking around the corner right then; maybe she’s pregnant, and maybe said bullet ends said pregnancy.
I’m sorry, but if Alabama law says that what she is carrying is a human being, then the shooter fired at a woman that had a child in front of her, not behind her.
It’s the whole point of “felony murder” laws. If you set up a violent situation (i.e. you rob a bank) and someone gets killed (i.e. the police are aiming for you but hit one of the hostages), you’re still responsible for creating the situation.
If, for instance, Jones had attacked Jemison, Jemison had responded appropriately, and some other pregnant person had gotten shot by accident and lost her child (let’s call her Andrea), I think that more people would support Andrea’s anger against Jones and not Jemison.
This is complicated by the fact that it’s pitting the mother’s interest against the fetus, and the fact that fetal personhood laws are vile abusive ways to do so.
You’re the second person to bring up felony murder laws. They only would apply if the fetus is a person, and I think from your post that you agree this is ridiculous.
However, if the felony murder laws apply, then so would laws against drinking, smoking, taking the wrong prescription drugs, or riding a roller coaster while pregnant. They all put the fetus in danger, which is a person under the theory that a felony murder charge makes sense in this case.
Yes, mischievous, that follows from the premises that Alabama is using: If the fetus is a person, then Jones can be guilty of the fetus’ murder by reason of felony murder rules. But that doesn’t mean that Jemison isn’t also guilty of murder. Jemison’s shooting of Jones was justified by self-defense, but Jemison’s shooting of the fetus was not. So why isn’t Jemison being charged, too?
In practice, I suspect it comes down to another principle of Alabama law: Namely, that if you have a gun, everything you do is automatically good and right.