Well I’m glad we cleared that up! Now we can get back to our busy, busy lives.
Yep
"The family of Laci Peterson Wednesday endorsed a bill being introduced on Capitol Hill that would allow a violent crime against a pregnant woman to be treated as crimes against two separate people. "
If this passes, it would only apply to federal cases.
Just for your information.
** astro**
Please pop me a link to that article you quoted. I’d like to read more about it. You left out a very important part of the arguement which is when does the “body part” become a separate and independent human being.
per Google, see here
Full opinion available here as pdf files. (State v Sandoval, obviously)
I would be in favor of making a violent crime against a pregnant woman more severely penalized. If you murder a woman while she is pregnant, for example, I think that would be a good aggravating circumstance to make the killer eligible for the death penalty.
However, I still think the crime is only done on one person.
Doesn’t that push us into “hate crime” territory? Where the crime is no “worse” than another crime but we’re going to say it’s worse without really explaining why?
Julie
Well, personally, I’d like to see something like, “involuntary abortion”, or something like that.
Because to purposely induce a miscarriage on a women is taking away her right to choose. D’uh.
Wait: was the Petersen case itself federal?
Well, sure. And killing her would tend to muck up the whole choice thing, too.
Julie
No, and California (where the crime took place) already has a law that calls what happened a crime against 2 persons.
But about half the states have no such law.
so the Peterson family is just looking to expand the law a little.
Oops, link
Oh, well, naturally. I was just commenting on the first case mentioned.
Kind of, but not exactly.
It would be a way for the state to express its outrage at the particular heinousness of killing a pregnant woman.
It’s not unheard of to have greater punishments for killing people under particular conditions. Aggravating circumstances that make murder worse.
For example, in Oregon killing somebody who is under 14 or killing a police officer are “aggravating circumstances” that can mean the difference between life with parole and getting life without parole or death.
Sorry. I should have included a 
but it just seemed kinda crass considering the subject matter!
Julie