While this particular crime can be traced back to the Laci Peterson homicide, there is a larger question that looms. Other threads in this forum have delved into the issue. I’d like to directly address the knowing murder of a late-term pregnant woman. Such a horrific crime may well need to merit harsher penalties.
I do not support fetal murder charges as they now exist in many American states. The fetus has no rights until birth. Until there is some sort of clarification of Roe versus Wade, this distinction is badly needed. However, I feel that anyone who murders an obviously pregnant woman should face enhanced charges. The logic of this directly stems from the fact that a pregnant woman is less able to defend herself and may act in ways to protect her unborn child that severely hamper her own self defense. To assault a gravid woman accords an extra degree of heinousness to the perpetrator’s motive. This should merit additional jail time and the potential inclusion of felonious conduct to what might otherwise have been misdemeanor assault charges.
I have great difficulty in seeing why a DUI offender should have to face double murder charges in the case of a pregnant woman being killed. While there is a need for all DUI drivers to confront the fact that they voluntarily endangered life through their acts, I am not sure it is wise to force all of society to consider every woman as pregnant when assessing the potential results of one’s conduct. However harsh this might seem, I am not prepared to have all of society view women as routinely carrying babies. Such skewed logic might eventually lead to the prosecution of those who deny a woman’s right to ovulate by harm or murder. We shall avoid considering Biblical “spilled seed” connotations that the waste of zygotic material represents in those texts. Otherwise men would soon be arrested for masturbation in the privacy of their own homes. I do not think that Mosaic law should, or does, extend so thoroughly into the realm of individual rights.
Is it proper and, if so, how do we properly designate enhanced criminal responsibility upon those who choose to knowingly slay visibly pregnant women as compared to more commonplace (yet still undesirable) homicide?
You again plunge into the nebulous realm of the DUI who culpably yet unknowingly kills another pregnant driver.
[To all of you reading this, please rest assured that I have great difficulty providing any sort of advocacy, at all, for a knowingly DUI driver that harms anyone. You must presume the worst when you take the wheel in an impaired state. Yet, I remain unconvinced that all women should be assumed to be pregnant at all times. I believe there is something that violates common sense in such a concept. Our bodies were designed to withstand certain tribulations. Certainly not from those who would do us most wrong. Yet, ordinary aggravated assault must rightfully be distinguished from grievous intentional harm.]
That said, I still seek some increased penalty for anyone who would intentionally harm an obviously pregnant woman without cause. As mentioned in the OP, I believe that there exists contradictory instincts for expectant mothers that prevent them from seeking their own best interests. Like any parent who would take their child’s place in danger, so it is with an expectant woman. I feel it is morally wrong to do harm against a woman who is obligated to avoid trauma at all costs. There is a certain degree of hostage-taking I find extremely repugnant in such circumstances.
Zenster, I don’t understand why you connect making the killing of a fetus illegal with an assumption that all women are pregnant. Could you explain this further?
I understand the purpose behind such laws is to fix what was a pretty glaring omission - someone could kill a late-term fetus without facing a punishment that suitably fit the situation. I remember reading about an incident that led to a Minnesota law on this point - a baby’s father decided he didn’t want a child so he killed the fetus. He killed a viable fetus, but couldn’t be charged with anything other than the attack on the mother.
I don’t think this is nebulous. First, deaths from intoxicated drivers are not easy to charge as intentional crimes - usually there is a lesser standard of culpability charged. Second, a person who commits a crime always faces the danger that the consequences will be more harsh than expected. For example, the felony murder rule can punish a criminal for a death that criminal didn’t commit. The driver in a robbery faces the same penalty as the person with the gun. We do this to criminals all the time.
Ah, but they(fetuses) do have rights! Even late term abortions have restrictions by law. If the mother has every intention of giving birth to this baby in the near future, this fetus is already viewed as an individual to her and maybe the father as well. To deny the birth, raising, succession and happiness for the parents and the denial of life for this fetus, could have a high intangible value in the minds of the mother and/or father. Maybe a civil suit is in order, instead of a double murder charge? I would be against using a civil suit in lieu of a double murder charge though because IMO, the fetus is life, not as a piece of property or a skill.
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And maybe this pregnant women is also transporting x number of children/adults in her vehicle as well. I don’t think that the person who is DUI contemplates on avoiding any multiple occupancy vehicles in his/her impaired judgement and only “accidentally” hits the cars that he/she thinks has only one unpregnant<sic> male occupant inside to avoid multiple murder charges.
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Wrongful death lawsuits are already alive and well in this country, it’s already skewed…
Re-read Roe. The state has an interest in the protection of a fetus, which is what allows for laws restricting the right to abortion under certain circumstances, including in the later portions of a pregnancy. The fetus itself doesn’t have any rights.
I find this line of logic a bit strange. Should we give extra punishment to a strong young man who kills an old lady? Or, a reduced punishment to an old lady who kills a strong young man? Simply because of their abilities to defend themselves? Obviously, they didn’t defend themselves effectively (they’re dead), so I’m not even sure why that’s a consideration.
Intuitively, I can see why killing a pregnant woman feels more heinous - but using such feelings to create law would require consistency, and then all punishments for murders would have to be defined in terms of how able the victim was to defend themselves, and that’s just whacky.
I guess I can sympathize with your intuitive feel that they should be punished more for such a heinous crime, but your logic, as it applies to forming law, seems strange and impractical.
If pro-choice advocates, and the law behind them, say that a fetus isn’t a life until it’s born, then it’s hypocritical at best to treat it as a non-life when the mother terminates it, and a life if someone else does.
It’s an unfair double standard. It seems consistent, at least, to have a legal point, a certain point in development, in which a fetus becomes a life. Currently, that seems to be at birth. Perhaps 2-3 months before birth would be more appropriate.
In any case, to have a stranger kill the fetus amount to murder, and to have the mother kill (or give permission to kill) the fetus being totally legal seems horribly inconsistent to me.
What I was trying to convey is that the fetal murder laws make it such that in accidental situations you are forced to assume that any given woman might be pregnant. I know this is a bit fuzzy. It is one of the reasons that I started this thread. I am trying to reason out some sort of coherent legal framework. What there is, so far, does not make full sense to me and I am seeking clarification.
I understand and readily agree with you. It is why I specifically noted that I cannot condone any amelioration of consequences for knowingly DUI drivers. Incidentally, I fully support a finding of intentional homicide against incorrigible repeat offender DUIs who cause the death of another while driving intoxicated.
Again, I’ll repeat that I’m groping about a bit here. This is an extremely unclear situation and I believe that the fetal murder laws fly in the face of Roe vs Wade. I entirely agree that the loss of a near-birth fetus should find redress in civil courts, at the very least. (per Yeticus Rex)
While we were discussing this over lunch, Aloha Aloha brought up an excellent point concerning the Laci Peterson homicide. When found, the fetus was external to the mother’s body. Whether this was due to post mortem dismemberment or spontaneously induced labor during the murder remains to be seen. Forensic analysis may be able to determine which was the case. However, because of the infant’s external state, there may be better justification for making a second charge of murder in this specific case. Feedback on this is welcome.
I understand that this is a direct inference to be made from my statements. However, I was attempting to identify how strange it seems to me if the law specifically intends to protect the unborn. How far back do we take it? Once again, I’ll point out that there begins to be an assumption that women are in a constant state of childbearing. There is merely a condition of conception or not. It is what I intended to demonstrate by mentioning the concept of harm to a woman’s ability to ovulate or her egg supply. I fully admit this is hazy. I’m doing my best to elucidate on this but may not be entirely successful. Wrongful death is quite obviously a tort, impediment of ovulation or fertility is not (from what I understand). Attempts to attribute rights to the unborn begin to skirt such nebulous issues and this is why I am concerned.
Thanks Sua, this is exactly what I am talking about. How can you be charged with murdering a fetus if it specifically has no rights? That the state seeks to protect the fetus’ interest by limiting certain activities that may harm it is a bit more easily understood. Even this concept is being pushed to its limits with new prosecutions based on intentional harm to the fetus through illicit drug use. Where and when state intervention is appropriate and or necessary is exactly what I am attempting to examine in this thread.
I believe the courts already find that assault of defenseless individuals (the elderly, children and the disabled) merits enhanced penalties. It’s not so much a matter of how able the victims are in defending themselves. Instead, the court should be allowed to assay a perpetrator’s willingness to victimize those who are temporarily incapacitated or incapable of self defense. Such a notion is already addressed in “predator” laws and might find proper application in the case of attacks upon visibly pregnant women.
I completely agree with you on this. It is one of the principal reasons that I began this thread. I feel that the anti-choice factions are getting a foot in the legal door with any sort of fetal rights and this needs to be stopped. Permitting such obvious legal contradictions to persist endangers the accepted precedents of Roe vs Wade.
Reproductive choice is a cornerstone of America’s doctrine of self-determination for women. I refuse to stand idly by as so many attempts are being made to revoke even a small portion of this extremely important concept. The current administration is actively campaigning to revert America back to a near-colonial era mindset. I find this to be seditious and am obliged to raise an alarm when seemingly innocuous and superficially acceptable laws like fetal murder are slipped under the public’s radar.
Intentional murder of a late-term pregnant woman demonstrates a callous disregard for human life that merits additional and severe penalties. I believe this finding of fact can be made without assigning fetal rights.
Zenster: “However, I feel that anyone who murders an obviously pregnant woman should face enhanced charges. The logic of this directly stems from the fact that a pregnant woman is less able to defend herself and may act in ways to protect her unborn child that severely hamper her own self defense.”
I’m basically with SenorBeef on this one Zenster. I also appreciate your special disgust at the thought of killing an “obviously pregnant woman,” but as the good Senor said, your logic here would imply added penalties for killing children, the disabled, the elderly or anyone else on behalf of whom one might make a plausible case for “less able to defend” herself or himself. In fact, it would also apply to cases where a strong and fit woman killed a less fit woman, or where anyone killed someone who was fast asleep.
I’d also like to dispute the reflexive assumption that pregnant women are less able to defend themselves. That all depends, doesn’t it? Yes, pregnant women in their third trimesters are heavier and more cumbersome than they normally are–and, if they’re like me, they do love getting their husbands to rub their feet and do all the heavy chores ;). But there’s no denying that many pregnant women can defend themselves better than all kinds of people–either b/c the pregnant woman in question is skilled in self-defense, or because the person to whom she’s being compared is physically unfit in some serious way.
It seems to me that what you’re really saying is that it’s just heinous to kill a pregnant woman. But is it necessary to codify heinousness as such? I’m not a lawyer but I’m under the impression that the heinousness of a crime often figures in sentencing. Most states have pretty harsh penalties for murder, up to and including the death penalty. Under such circumstances I see no ethical obligation or utilitarian motive (such as deterrence) for making fetal murder a crime. Instead this seems to me like yet another way of attempting to establish the legal foundations for fetal rights–something I join you in opposing.
The really silly thing is why is there even a debate about the technicality of killing a fetus in the Laci Peterson case. If the justice system was fair, they would convict the murderer of Laci Peterson regardless of the state or term of her pregnancy. A murderer should pay for the crime of one murder the same as two or more. You cant send a man more than once into the gas chamber.
So Zenster, if someone were to kill a pregnant women’s fetus without (otherwise) harming the woman, what (if anything) would/should they be considered guilty of, from a legal and/or a moral standpoint?
X~Slayer(ALE), you are assuming that a murderer will receive the death penalty. There are many states where the death penalty is not in place.
It is critical to ensure a multiple murderer be sentenced to consecutive terms of incarceration. You may not be able to repeatedly execute a killer, but you can subject them to multiple life sentences. This guarantees that they will never again see the light of day. Heinous crimes warrant enhanced penalties. Killing a gravid woman merits expanded sentencing.
I also dispute that a late-term pregnant woman is not some way reduced in the ability to defend herself. While she might be able to overpower a child, she is most definitely at a disadvantage when confronting a violent adult assailant. It is not just the cumbersome aspect of full pregnancy either. Consciously avoiding punches to or laceration of the belly could easily interfere with opportunistic retaliation during a fight.
Thudlow Boink, thank you for bringing up this salient and essential point. This is what I am trying to address here. Is there some way to legally deter and punish the assault or killing of a fetus without according that same fetus any legal rights? It is why I mention callous disregard for human life. Unpermitted termination of a woman’s obvious (or known) pregnancy certainly represents such callous disregard for the quality of her life. I find this to be a worthwhile starting point.
How true…I live in California, one of the tax- supported “abortion on demand” states and a state that imposes “murder charges” on the killing of a seven week old fetus. We are the true double-standard state…no wonder we’re why we are always in the news…
It’s funny how the NOW spokesperson tries to explain that it’s not murder when Laci already had the name “Connor” picked out for the baby…I guess it comes to how much the mother values the baby. If you notice, a wanted fetus is always called “baby” by the mother(s) and not “fetus”, which is usually spoken by pro-choice groups. The attachment and individuality of the baby by the mother is already evident way before birth(even more than 2 or 3 months before birth). Tell that to an unattached NOW spokesperson, and you’ll get reasons why it’s NOT a “baby”, just a “fetus”, therefore, not a murder…go figure.
The problem is coming up with a threshold. IMHO, at the earliest point in gestation at which the baby could reasonably live outside the womb with the aid of medical technolocy is where the line should be set. The only difference between a second trimester fetus and a 4 month premature baby is that it’s legal to kill one but not the other. Let’s take a look at the abilities of modern medicine and put the line there, to resolve that inconsitency.
And I’m really looking forward to seeing the house of cards the abortionists have built come crumbling down. They’ve avoided this issue for quite some time. It’s just a shame that the National Organization for (Leftist) Women had to use a gruesome situation like this to force the issue with their press conference today that sparked it all, but one way or another this inconsistency ought to be resolved. Perhaps it’ll backfire on them. I suspect that most people in this country think of an unborn child as far along as Laci’s was as a human life. The pro-abortion crowd might need to back off their more extreme “abortion should be legal until the day before birth” stance.
Oh, lets’ get down to brass tacks. If fetal murder is a crime for someone other than the mother, how is it not a crime in the case of the mother who undergoes an abortion?
I think this is just another ploy by the anti-abortion crew to get at a woman’s right to control her own body.