# Federal crime to injure or kill a fetus during an attack on the mother? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 16, 2001, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-crime-to-injure-or-kill-a-fetus-during-an-attack-on-the-mother/58283 "2001-03-16T20:21:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-crime-to-injure-or-kill-a-fetus-during-an-attack-on-the-mother/58283/21 "2001-03-17T19:35:50Z")
> [@](#): > > it seeks to establish a legal > principal protecting fetuses from Roe v. Wade. No, you are afraid that it may lead to that, and perhaps with good reason, but that is not what it \*\*does.[b/] Rather than argue agianst it based on intangibles that don’t actually, and may never exist, I think efforts could better be spent supporting it’s strong qualities while ensuring in a cooperative fashion that it’s negative potentials can’t be realized. (There’s a topic in this in the pit, where I’ve gone into more detail) Minty: No, I get your point. Where you draw the state vs. Federal line, is never an easy choice. For example, I’m sure you’d agree that Wisconsin doesn’t have the right to legalize rape if they want to. If they did it’d still be illegal Federally. If the States don’t protect women’s reproductive rights, I think the government should stept in. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-crime-to-injure-or-kill-a-fetus-during-an-attack-on-the-mother/58283/22 "2001-03-17T21:05:25Z")
Scylla, that’s exactly what this proposed legislation **does** , or better said, attempts to do. Redefining the fetus and allowing Federal intrusion into all cases involving women lays an obvious path to the Supreme Court, which is one appointment away from reestablishing abortion as illegal. You can deny this plan–and it is a sophisticated, orchestrated plan–all you want, but other readers, I’m certain, will see the logic behind it. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2001, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-crime-to-injure-or-kill-a-fetus-during-an-attack-on-the-mother/58283/23 "2001-03-19T02:57:40Z")
No, **Scylla** , I would not agree that Wisconsin does not have the right to legalize rape. It would be incredibly stupid policy to do so, of course. But can you point me to something in the federal Constitution that that requires a state to make rape, murder, larceny, arson, or any other behavior a state crime? The federal government simply does not have a general police power over local crimes. ---
**Author:** ![SuaSponte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2001, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-crime-to-injure-or-kill-a-fetus-during-an-attack-on-the-mother/58283/24 "2001-03-19T22:52:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wring \* > \*\*“Under the bill, any perpetrator of a federal crime of violence against a pregnant woman could be charged separately for injuring or killing her fetus at any stage of development, **even if the attacker was unaware of the pregnancy**.” > > What??? [SNIP] > > IIRC, in New York, (for example), they have legislation making the killing of a police officer 1st degree homicide, but one of the important factors is that the perpetrator **had to know** the person was an officer. \*\* Actually, **wring** darling, there is nothing unusual about this. Normally, you take your victim as they are. The example usually given is the “eggshell head” - you assault someone, but not in a way that would reasonably be considered life-threatening; say a slap upside the head. Unbeknownst to you, your victim has a medical condition which causes him to have extremely fragile bones (a condition popularized by “Unbreakable”). He dies from skull fractures. You have committed a homicide, even though you had no way of knowing that would be the result. The policy reasons behind the police officer murder rule in NY is different (deterrence of killing cops), and knowing he/she is a cop makes sense under those policy considerations (assuming you think the death penalty is a deterrent). As for the general issue, if you accept that the federal government has a role in preventing crimes against women (i.e., if you think VAWA is a good law), I don’t see a problem. Yes, I am aware that the push for this law is likely a push to get fetuses treated as human beings, but that is not the necessary legal result. Whether a fetus is a person or property, the mother has rights the rest of the world doesn’t. To use an atrocious and nearly offense analogy (I apologize in advance), a fetus is like a lawnmower. Within reason, you have a right to destroy your lawnmower whenever you want to. If someone else destroys your lawnmower, they have committed a crime. Sua ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2001, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-crime-to-injure-or-kill-a-fetus-during-an-attack-on-the-mother/58283/25 "2001-03-19T23:49:29Z")
Nice pattern here. Sofa Posts I post a rebuttal. Sofa reposts his same argument as a counter-rebuttal. Here, and in the Pit thread. So for the last time: Ok, so it’s a Republican conspiracy to reinstate laws aginst abortion. I will grant you that point. I don’t care. It has nothing to do with my argument. My argument is simple enough that we really shouldn’t be having any problems here, but here it is again. Protecting pregnant women is a **good** thing. If you assault a pregnant woman and she miscarries, that’s two crimes. It is perhaps just about the most inhuman thing I can imagine. It should be the unmistakable law of the land that this shall be dealt with extra harshly. Now does this provide more manuevering room to those who wish to make abortion illegal? Of course it does. But the test of justice, the test of a good law is not whether it promotes or hinders your political interests. That should be a moot point to someone who claims to really care. I have yet to say that if you’re against this law you must be for assault on pregant women, because I don’t bother with rhetoric or obviously fallacious arguments. That hasn’t stopped you, from your conspiracy theories. That they have no bearing on the actual effect of the law seems to be lost on you. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2001, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-crime-to-injure-or-kill-a-fetus-during-an-attack-on-the-mother/58283/26 "2001-03-20T03:20:58Z")
**Sua** I hate to even point this out because I’m 99.9% certain that you’re already aware of it, but the Supreme Court has already ruled that certain provisions of the Violence Against Women Act are unconstitutional. Commerce clause and all that. If anyone is interested, here is \*[United States v. Morrison\*](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US=case=000=99-5). For instance: > [@](#): > > Gender-motivated crimes of violence are not, in any sense of the phrase, economic activity. While we need not adopt a categorical rule against aggregating the effects of any non-economic activity in order to decide these cases, thus far in our Nation’s history our cases have upheld Commerce Clause regulation of intrastate activity only where that activity is economic in nature. > [@](#): > > [T]he concern that we expressed in Lopez that Congress might use the Commerce Clause to completely obliterate the Constitution’s distinction between national and local authority seems well founded . . . . If accepted, petitioners’ reasoning would allow Congress to regulate any crime as long as the nationwide, aggregated impact of that crime has substantial effects on employment, production, transit, or consumption. Indeed, if Congress may regulate gender-motivated violence, it would be able to regulate murder or any other type of violence since gender-motivated violence, as a subset of all violent crime, is certain to have lesser economic impacts than the larger class of which it is a part. (Emphasis added.) **Scylla** 1. Protecting pregnant women is a good thing. 2. Declaring a fetus to be a human being deserving of independent legal recognition is a bad thing (IMHO). 3. It is perfectly possible to do #1 without doing #2. [Insert toilet training joke here, Opal.] 4. It is a bad thing to do #2 under the guise of doing #1. 5. At the federal level, doing #2 under the pretense of doing #1 is hypocritical and worthy of the utmost contempt if the proponent claims to support state’s rights, local control, and limited centralized government. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2001, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-crime-to-injure-or-kill-a-fetus-during-an-attack-on-the-mother/58283/27 "2001-03-20T03:39:58Z")
You’re right Minty. Doing one thing under the guise of another is never good. I’m not sure that that’s accurate. It might be a little simplistic. I think they think they are doing one good thing in and of itself that may potentially lead to another and it fulfills both objectives. I’m also uncomfortable with a blanket dismissal of fetal rights. I favor a woman’s choice to an abortion early in her term. At some point, and I’m pretty sure that it’s before it’s born for sound physiological reasons (I did a whole thread on it,) that fetus **is** a human being by most any measure you could take. At that point I think it is entitled to rights. The whole thing is a pretty complex issue, and I don’t think it’s as black and white as it’s being made. There are merits to this legislation. It will need to be altered, and compromised to be the best that it can for all concerned. Perhaps it can be taken care of at the state level. But, there are merits to it. It shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand as a piece of disngenuous Republican misdirectional propaganda. It’s not that simple. ---
**Author:** ![SuaSponte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2001, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-crime-to-injure-or-kill-a-fetus-during-an-attack-on-the-mother/58283/28 "2001-03-20T04:28:19Z")
**minty** – Aware? Hell, as a student I helped write a part of an _amicus_ brief defending the law for the Supremes. Obviously, I did a piss poor job. 😃 Sua ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2001, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-crime-to-injure-or-kill-a-fetus-during-an-attack-on-the-mother/58283/29 "2001-03-20T04:54:52Z")
Hey, I spent 2 hours of my Con Law I exam arguing that VAWA was constitutional. The prof gave me an A, but the Supremes have apparently decided to flunk my essay. So much for my “substantial impact on interstate commerce” argument, huh? Of course, the VAWA was primarily concerned with a federal intrustion on state civil law, which I inevitably find to be less troublesome than federal intrusions on criminal law. Truth be told, I’m far less interested in the policy than I am in the hypocricy. I totally agree that the sponsors of this bill think they’re doing good by protecting both pregnant women and fetuses. I’m just pissed off that their desire to interfere with a woman’s uterus trumps their alleged interest in preserving local control. I mean, how many times have you heard the Republican argument that dumping _Roe v. Wade_ would merely return authority over abortion rights to the state legislatures? But if the R’s think they can pull this one off (assuming there’s no underlying federal crime), then there is absolutely no reason to believe that they really intend to make abortion rights a local decision, even absent a constitutional amendment. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2001, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-crime-to-injure-or-kill-a-fetus-during-an-attack-on-the-mother/58283/30 "2001-03-20T16:41:03Z")
( **Sua** , thanks for being so gentle - I understand concepts about the ‘take the victim as they are’ and intent follows the action, still don’t like this proposed law, ok?) **Scylla** - if the intent of the law is to be protective of pregnant women, why isn’t knowledge of the pregnancy (at least by the woman!) required? You don’t have a problem with this scenario? How about these: 1. Pregnant woman continues to smoke, she’s now guilty of a felony (the smoke is an assault on both her and the fetus) 2. Pregnant woman takes an aspirin for her headache, drinks a glass of wine. Since the fetus is now legally a person, this would consitute abuse of a minor, contributing to the delinquency etc. 3. Pregnant woman has minor car accident for which she is at fault. The airbag inflates, and she miscarries. She’s now subject to felony prosecution for murder? I can come up with more. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2001, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-crime-to-injure-or-kill-a-fetus-during-an-attack-on-the-mother/58283/31 "2001-03-29T01:07:55Z")
New info. **Scylla** you suggested here that the point of this legislation is to “protect pregnant women”. Please, explain to me, then, how this would happen, since according to [this](http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/reuters20010328_3895.html) , > [@](#): > > “Unborn Victims of Violence Act” would punish criminals who hurt or kill a fetus during the commission of a crime against the pregnant woman. Under current federal law, **the perpetrator would receive no additional punishment for killing or injured the unborn child.** (emphasis added) So, the law would not affect the punishment of the perpetrator who, of course, would already be guilty of a crime of violence against the woman. Howzat add protection to the pregnant woman??? ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2001, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-crime-to-injure-or-kill-a-fetus-during-an-attack-on-the-mother/58283/32 "2001-03-29T01:09:57Z")
Sorry. adding the emphasis allowed me to read it clearly. nevermind. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-crime-to-injure-or-kill-a-fetus-during-an-attack-on-the-mother/58283.md?page=1)