For a moment, I had to double-check to see if Sampiro wrote this. Bravo, Sir!
To my mind the answer would depend on how far along the pregnancy is - same as my answer for when abortion should be allowable. If the fetus was far enough along to have the capacity for conciousness (sometime in the 3rd trimester) you are in murder territory: before that, the most you could do is use it as an aggrivating factor in the assualt charge on Jill, since a fetus of that age isn’t a “person” yet. In particular, the intent on the part of Jim Crackhead in the first scenario (assuming you could prove it) would I think cause any judge here to sentence at the top of the allowable range for aggrivated assault on Jill, whether the pregancy was one week or nine months.
It seems to me that someone killing a fetus should not be charged with murder at any stage of the pregnancy. The law treats the fetus as if it were nothing but an organ during the first two trimesters. Even the child’s father cannot choose to terminate the pregnancy without the mother’s consent. Therefore the crime should be an aggravated assault or destruction of property.
Fetuside?
I agree with you entirely. It’s not murder, but then neither is slicing out someone’s kidney, which would not be looked upon too kindly by the courts.
It seems to me that the charge of murder ought to be limited to a viable fetus.
Here is another wrinkle that this thread made me think of:
Suppose the pregnant woman attacks you and in the course of defending yourself, you cause the death of the unborn child. Would you be guilty of a crime? It is not considered justifiable if I injure or kill an innocent bystander in the course of defending myself. Is the pregnant woman guilty of a crime?
Thanks,
Rob
It’s certainly not justifiable to deliberately kill a third party in self defense. What would the law say if I’m attacked with lethal force, shoot back at my attacker, and one of my bullets accidentally goes astray and hits an innocent bystander? That looks like the closest analogous situation, to me.
(that’s a real question, by the way, not rhetorical: I don’t know the answer)
I’d probably be dead n such a circumstance, unless the pregant woman were also threatening Kim or my stepdaughter. I would have a very hard time making myself do violence to her.
I’d say she’s about as guilty as anyone who uses a hostage/human shield. Consider a person standing behind a hostage who alternates between pointing a gun at the hostage and at police/bystanders. The police are justified in killing or injuring the hostage-taker and while they’ll do their best to avoid injuring or killing the hostage, it might be necessary if the hostage-taker starts shooting at bystanders, endangering their lives.
Murder no. It’s a fairly unique crime. Maybe a step above regular assault, but not murder.
That’s such a tough question that in practice I’m willing to not make a decision, and let the politicians and the passionate activists hash it out.
I feel the same way access to late term abortion.
But for purposes of this thread, I’ll go with not calling it murder, and have the penalties normally be a smidgen less than murder.
I’m okay --in theory-- with the death penalty for certain types of murder, and at first I was thinking that I couldn’t support the death penalty for “fetal murder”…so that would make them different crimes.
But, then I envisioned a Charles Manson type invading a party of pregnant women with a 7" knife, and not actually killing any of the women. I could support the death penalty there.
Still, I generally rank it with the worst types of assault, rather than murder. Things like blinding, castration, facial mutilation.
To sum up: not murder but if you want to have it called murder I won’t quibble unless you’re doing so as part of an anti-abortion strategy. In which case you can go sniff your own ass.