Thank you for that but how do we square the difference between the op circumstance and my hypothetical in light of that?
In one a woman is assaulted in order to destroy the entity within her to prevent that entity from becoming a fully formed human and that attempted destruction is called attempted homicide.
In the other a building is broken into and entered with in order to destroy similar entities to prevent any of them from becoming fully formed humans.
Destruction of those entities is otherwise allowed when not part of another separate crime.
Defining this crime as homicide validates the perspective of those against abortion rights. It defines the entity in question as a person. It frames discussion in the way it is being framed here, with defenses of why it is okay to kill a person in the context of abortion.
Fetal or even embryonic personhood is something the anti-abortion crowd would love to have be the frame. A debate about what right one person has to live, to continue to exist, and how much that trumps another person’s rights to something less existential as life itself? That the anti-Choice frame of discussion. I do not accept that frame.
Ok, I’m going to be the one to say it: Yes it was an appalling crime and should carry a heavy sentence. But I’m not sure that a charge of “murder” makes sense, and also I *do *think there should be different degrees to such crimes.
I know this opens up a can of worms but that seems unavoidable to me.
Calling a fertilized egg a “person” sure makes things simple, and I think this kind of sentence is also trying to take the simple route (and since no-one is going to lose sleep over some jerk getting an overly-long sentence, it pretty much puts the matter to bed). But in reality, I don’t think things are so simple.
If a guy were to, say, have consensual sex with a woman, and the next day, slip the morning-after pill into her breakfast…yes, it’s a crime, a crime against the woman. But it’s just not the same as murdering someone’s child.
ETA: Obviously the situation in the OP is of course much worse than the morning-after pill hypothetical, as the perpetrator knows he’s ending a life. It’s just for illustration.
This merely begs the question. If it is indeed murder; if we stipulate that for the purposes of discussion, then that casts serious doubt on the “you can’t live inside my body anymore” position.
Let’s leave aside the argument that the fetus/child was “invited” into the womb because any reasonable woman knows that sexual intercourse may lead to pregnancy. I’m not trying to turn this into a pro-life argument.
But with every law, we do a balancing of harms analysis. If I can drive 100mph I get to my destination quicker. However, driving at such a speed increases the risk of injury to others. So society looks at both interests and say that my interests in getting somewhere faster is lesser than the risk I pose to others. Therefore, it is illegal to drive at 100mph.
If we look at the interests of pregnant women as noted above: the right to autonomy, to control reproductive decisions, to be free from health risks, etc. then the right of a “clump of cells” or a “potential life” but not life, may very well take a back seat to the woman’s interests. But if we say, as this law does, that it would be “murder” to kill the fetus/child, that tips the scales. That is what the OP i(who is admittedly pro-choice) is concerned about. I share his concern with the internal consistency of the law.
Nitpick: I don’t think anyone disagrees that a fetus is a life or alive. I’m not sure where you get that from. I think the disagreement (for some people) is whether it’s a person with rights. “Potential person” not “potential life”.
Anyway, you’re a lawyer – can you take a look at the article and relevant law and tell us whether this is classified as murder or homicide or what? Is it some degree of murder and it’s just called homicide in that state or is it some other kind of crime specific to homicides? Do those questions even make sense from a legal perspective?
Thought experiment: Imagine a cryogenic freezing chamber where people have paid money to freeze themselves after they die in the hope that in the future medicine will advance. If someone pushes over a cryogenic freezing tube is it murder?
Does it make a difference if just as it happened a scientist announced publically that they had found a way to bring the frozen people back to life?
If killing s fetus is murder, should we investigate every miscarriage? What if the woman drank some wine or coffee, or “thought bad thoughts” about the fetus?
I am not sure if you are asking what the law is or what it should be. If it is what the law is, then it is not murder, perhaps desecration of a grave, but not murder because you cannot kill a dead person.
Now, if this becomes popular and people in legislatures are demanding protection, the Human Cryo Rights Act of 2087 could be enacted and declare that the frozen people are not dead, but alive and have rights.
More to the spirit of the OP would be if the law said that, for example, a family member could dispose of the frozen person without penalty, but if a stranger did it it would be murder. One would then ask, as the OP did, well how can it be murder for one person but not another?
Let’s create a new crime, call it “gestational interference”.
It’s a felony, not sure what class.
Anyone who does something like what this guy did (except the actual pregnant woman) gets charged with violating this statute.
Leave murder out of it.
Done.
Nothing about the crime says it is a crime against the fetus. It simply says the crime is killing the fetus. That can still be a crime against the mother, treating the fetus as belonging to her.
This crime is more specific than assault, and likely has a higher punishment. So no need to go after assault charges.
In many ancient societies, e.g. the Roman Republic, a parent had the right to kill his or her own child, but it would be murder for someone else to kill it. There is some logic to such practices, though most people, insisting on seeing all as black-or-white, won’t agree.
I’m happy to accept that a foetus is an intermediate form of human, which its mother has the right to kill during its first six months.
I’m not really sure what kind of important distinction you think you’re making. Murder is (one kind of) homicide. And “unborn child” does seem to implicitly be taken here to be as important and grievous a crime as attempting to kill a person, hence the lengthy sentence.
If your point is that omitting “attempted” and calling it the strongest kind of homicide makes it sound more serious a crime than it was judged to be…that only lends weight to what I was saying about the sentence being too harsh.
My point is that there would seem to be a statute specific to this crime. Which means that all the equivalencies being drawn to murder charges are false equivalencies.
I just used the word “murder” because “homicide” was in the charge and the sentence is of a scale typical for attempted murder.
But I don’t actually care whether we’re calling it “murder”, “zygoticide” or “electric boogaloo”. My point was about whether the punishment fit the crime and whether part of the reason was because of the US’ still very religious culture.
The statute fiddles with names and definitions but in the end it is prosecuted and sentenced as a grievous crime. Not many things come with a 22 year jail sentence. Hell…you can find lots of people convicted of murder sentenced to less time.
Sure, if I’m the parent and I give consent for you to take my child to the park, its ok. If you take my child to the park and I haven’t given consent, its kidnapping. Until a fetus is born, it has one guardian, the person carrying it.