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Fetal homicide laws.

prometeus

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Some states have them some do not. Some include all stages of pregnancy from conception some do not. Come to think of it most states do not criminalize the killing of a fetus prior to viability or "quickening."
Given the inconsistency of these laws what if anything do they add or detract to and from the abortion issue/debate?

How can it be reasoned that in some places fetuses are significant to a degree and in some they are not?

Also keep in mind that ALL of the laws make explicit exceptions for abortion.
 
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I think fetal homicide laws were a capitulation to the Right, by the Left.
How could we say no without appearing heartless, when Lacey Peterson's (or insert other random pregnant murder victim's name here) bereaved parents were sobbing at us in front of America, beseeching us to think of darling little unborn Connor, whom they would never get to hold.


I think this capitulation was a mistake, however.
We all know it's irrational and wrong, despite our urge to toss the families of murder victims some comforting bone.
We should never have allowed it. I for one do not mind appearing heartless, in the matter of women's reproductive rights.
It could be explained to these bereaved families that to prosecute their daughter's murderers for two murders might endanger reproductive choice for all women, thereby cheapening and invalidating the noble choice their daughters made, by making pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood itself compulsory: turning it into an imperative dictated by the state. There would be no dignity or humanity in that, not for their dead daughters, for other pregnant (or even not pregnant) women, or for society in general.
 
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Some states have them some do not. Some include all stages of pregnancy from conception some do not. Come to think of it most states do not criminalize the killing of a fetus prior to viability or "quickening."

At least 38 do have them. 21 of those say at any stage of pregnancy. Facts suck, don't they?
 
oh, and most of their laws use the term "unborn child".

Intellectual dishonesty?
 
I am combining two posts for the sake of expediency.

My original assertion was: "Come to think of it most states do not criminalize the killing of a fetus prior to viability or "quickening.""

To which you answered:
What gave you this idea? Do you have any proof to back this assumption?

Then:

At least 38 do have them. 21 of those say at any stage of pregnancy.

Thank you for proving my point. But just in case it evades you or the math is out of reach for you I'll break it down. There being 50 states of which, by your account, only 21 criminalize the killing of a fetus at any stage of pregnancy, that leaves 29 states that DO NOT criminalize at any stage of pregnancy. They either do not criminalize at all or only after viability or "quickening." Here is the hard math part. 29 is a greater number than 21 and 25 is half of the number of states. Since 29 is also greater than 25 it follows that a majority or "MOST" meaning more than those who do not, do not criminalize the killing of a fetus prior to viability or quickening. I hope that was not too difficult to follow and it cleared it up for you. If need be I'll explain again, but unfortunately I will not be able to draw pictures. This media and my artistic skills just don't allow it.

Fetal Homicide laws add to the rather large amount of proof that the unborn child is a legal entity.
That is your opinion and even though I do not agree with it, I'd love to see what reasoning you used to arrive to that opinion, especially in the light of my initially pointing out the inconsistency in these laws. How do you get past the outright conflicting statutes?

Facts suck, don't they?
They do, especially when you lack the understanding to know what they mean.
 
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Thank you for proving my point. But just in case it evades you or the math is out of reach for you I'll break it down. There being 50 states of which, by your account, only 21 criminalize the killing of a fetus at any stage of pregnancy, that leaves 29 states that DO NOT criminalize at any stage of pregnancy. They either do not criminalize at all or only after viability or "quickening." Here is the hard math part. 29 is a greater number than 21 and 25 is half of the number of states. Since 29 is also greater than 25 it follows that a majority or "MOST" meaning more than those who do not, do not criminalize the killing of a fetus prior to viability or quickening. I hope that was not too difficult to follow and it cleared it up for you. If need be I'll explain again, but unfortunately I will not be able to draw pictures. This media and my artistic skills just don't allow it.

I knew you'd try this spin, very lame. If that's how you want to back your statement, fine, but it is exceptionally lame.

Regardless, at least 38 of 50 have fetal homicide laws, the remaining 12 confer harsher sentences for crimes against pregnant women. Most of them (but not all) specify unborn children as persons. And nearly everyone uses the term unborn child.
 
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I knew you'd try this spin, very lame. If that's how you want to back your statement, fine, but it is exceptionally lame.

Regardless, at least 38 of 50 have fetal homicide laws, the remaining 12 confer harsher sentences for crimes against pregnant women. Most of them (but not all) specify unborn children as persons. And nearly everyone uses the term unborn child.

There is no doubt that the pro-life community lobbied for fetal homicide laws with the intention of undermining RvW. Hopefully, these laws will eventually be repealed and replaced with laws simply requiring or allowing harsher punishment for assaulting a pregnant woman.

What supporters of legal abortion say about "fetal homicide" laws

Professor Michael Dorf, Columbia University School of Law

Professor Michael Dorf is a former Supreme Court clerk who, by some accounts, drafted some key parts of the 1992 5-4 ruling in Casey v. Planned Parenthood, which reaffirmed Roe v. Wade. This passage is excerpted from Dorf’s essay for Findlaw.com, titled “How Abortion Politics Impedes Clear Thinking on Other Issues Involving Fetuses,” under the subheading, “Why Feticide Prohibitions that Exempt Abortion Are Consistent with Roe.” FindLaw Legal News

There are two satisfactory answers to the worry that supporting anti-feticide laws undermines Roe.

First, laws treating feticide as murder do not need to define fetuses as persons. California's law is illustrative. It defines murder as the killing of a human being or a fetus.

Second, there is nothing especially troubling about permitting the law to define the word “person” differently for different purposes. Statutes routinely define various words, including “person,” so that they will mean exactly what the legislature intends in a particular context, and even general constitutional language can be interpreted differently depending upon the context. Corporations, for example, are “persons” under the Fourteenth Amendment in the sense that their property cannot be taken without fair processes, but not in the sense that they are entitled to vote on equal terms with natural persons
 
Some states have them some do not. Some include all stages of pregnancy from conception some do not. Come to think of it most states do not criminalize the killing of a fetus prior to viability or "quickening."
Given the inconsistency of these laws what if anything do they add or detract to and from the abortion issue/debate?

How can it be reasoned that in some places fetuses are significant to a degree and in some they are not?

Also keep in mind that ALL of the laws make explicit exceptions for abortion.

Such laws are inconsistent with abortion being legal. Something needs to change.
 
There is no doubt that the pro-life community lobbied for fetal homicide laws with the intention of undermining RvW. Hopefully, these laws will eventually be repealed and replaced with laws simply requiring or allowing harsher punishment for assaulting a pregnant woman.

What supporters of legal abortion say about "fetal homicide" laws

Professor Michael Dorf, Columbia University School of Law

Professor Michael Dorf is a former Supreme Court clerk who, by some accounts, drafted some key parts of the 1992 5-4 ruling in Casey v. Planned Parenthood, which reaffirmed Roe v. Wade. This passage is excerpted from Dorf’s essay for Findlaw.com, titled “How Abortion Politics Impedes Clear Thinking on Other Issues Involving Fetuses,” under the subheading, “Why Feticide Prohibitions that Exempt Abortion Are Consistent with Roe.” FindLaw Legal News

There are two satisfactory answers to the worry that supporting anti-feticide laws undermines Roe.

First, laws treating feticide as murder do not need to define fetuses as persons. California's law is illustrative. It defines murder as the killing of a human being or a fetus.

Second, there is nothing especially troubling about permitting the law to define the word “person” differently for different purposes. Statutes routinely define various words, including “person,” so that they will mean exactly what the legislature intends in a particular context, and even general constitutional language can be interpreted differently depending upon the context. Corporations, for example, are “persons” under the Fourteenth Amendment in the sense that their property cannot be taken without fair processes, but not in the sense that they are entitled to vote on equal terms with natural persons

I doubt it, the current trend has more and more states gaining fetal homicide laws and/or strengthening the ones they have.
 
Most of them have specific exceptions for abortion.

I know that. What I'm saying is that the ideas behind those laws are inconsistent with the ideas behind legal abortion. If a fetus is a person, then those laws are fine, and causing the death of one should be homicide. In that case, abortion should be illegal. If a fetus is not a person, then legal abortion is fine, but causing the death of someone else's fetus should not be homicide. At most it should be punished on a level similar to damaging another's property, or animal cruelty laws. That's the inconsistency I'm talking about.
 
I knew you'd try this spin, very lame. If that's how you want to back your statement, fine, but it is exceptionally lame.
Really? That is the best you can do after making a fool of yourself and having your ass handed to you?
 
Really? That is the best you can do after making a fool of yourself and having your ass handed to you?

If you think you did that, then you are truly delusional. Every state provides for stricter punishment of crimes against pregnant women, 38 have fetal homicide laws, 21 make no distinction of when it's a fetal homicide. If you think your ridiculous position amounts to squat in light of this, then reality need play no part in your absurd conclusions.
 
If you think you did that, then you are truly delusional.
No mac, I don't think it, it is a fact and I did not do it you did it all by yourself.

If you think your ridiculous position amounts to squat in light of this, then reality need play no part in your absurd conclusions.
But I did not make any assertion on any position. I posed a question for debate and I presented facts. You were the one, who in a rush to discredit me made a fool of yourself. I had nothing to do with it.
 
Such laws are inconsistent with abortion being legal. Something needs to change.

Molten Dragon, I knew there'd come a time when we'd agree. And the "something" that needs to change is that abortion needs to be banned for all but medical reasons after this "quickening" or "viability" stage.
 
Really? That is the best you can do after making a fool of yourself and having your ass handed to you?

Misreading a post is hardly having one's ass handed to them. Are these the cheap victories we're looking for? Good luck with that yardstick.
 
But I did not make any assertion on any position. I posed a question for debate and I presented facts. You were the one, who in a rush to discredit me made a fool of yourself. I had nothing to do with it.

If you think your little math drill makes this accurate
Come to think of it most states do not criminalize the killing of a fetus prior to viability or "quickening."
Then you are truly grasping at straws.

21 states make no distinction at all. The remaining 17 make some distinction, however they vary and only some of those set the limit to after "quickening" or viability. Further, in those 17 states that do distinguish a point in the pregnancy, crimes against pregnant women in a stage of pregnancy prior to that point still receive stiffer penalties than for the same crime committed against a not pregnant woman or a man.

Despite your amazing grasp of mathematics, your position is weak at best.
 
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It could be explained to these bereaved families that to prosecute their daughter's murderers for two murders might endanger reproductive choice for all women, thereby cheapening and invalidating the noble choice their daughters made, by making pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood itself compulsory: turning it into an imperative dictated by the state. There would be no dignity or humanity in that, not for their dead daughters, for other pregnant (or even not pregnant) women, or for society in general.

No one would be compelled to get pregnant, nor compelled to raise the child. I also think it's a rather absurd argument in this case. However you look at it there was no choice on the part of the mother and the loss is much worse than a meager assault. Someone randomly punches a woman in the stomach once when she isn't pregnant and it is an assault that might bruise her for a time aside from temporarily upsetting her. Someone randomly punches a pregnant woman in the stomach once causing her to miscarry and it will devastate her emotionally. The emotional damage of a miscarriage is bad enough without it being the result of an attack.

I am curious, though, are you against these laws even after viability? Certainly I don't see anyone saying illegal abortion in the third trimester should be punishable on the same level as homicide.
 
Molten Dragon, I knew there'd come a time when we'd agree. And the "something" that needs to change is that abortion needs to be banned for all but medical reasons after this "quickening" or "viability" stage.

I actually fully agree with you on that. I don't believe elective abortion should be legal after the point of viability.
 
I actually fully agree with you on that. I don't believe elective abortion should be legal after the point of viability.

:cheers:

I am surprised.

As I've said before, that's where I am. ProChoice to that point. You know how the polls tell us that the majority of Americans are ProChoice? I wonder how many ProChoicers (like you and I) feel the exact same way.
 
:cheers:

I am surprised.

As I've said before, that's where I am. ProChoice to that point. You know how the polls tell us that the majority of Americans are ProChoice? I wonder how many ProChoicers (like you and I) feel the exact same way.

Most, since breakdown polls show that the majority of pro-choicers are only so inclined out to the first trimester. A very small percentage favor abortion at any stage.
 
Most, since breakdown polls show that the majority of pro-choicers are only so inclined out to the first trimester. A very small percentage favor abortion at any stage.

I believe you. A poll that simply asks, "Do you support the right to abortion?" would get a qualified "yes" from me. But most polls don't allow qualifiers. I have no problem believing that those that do qualify show exactly what you're saying.

Then, of course, the next argument becomes, "At what stage is 'quickening' or 'viability.' But really, I think it should be well before that. Would seem to me that the objective should be to allow a woman the right to an abortion within a timeframe that gives her time to find out she's pregnant, time to ponder her options, time to live with a decision a little while before moving forward, and time to get an abortion if that's her choice. It wouldn't have to be, "Well, viability is deemed to be X, so X minus one week is the limit," in my opinion.

As you've said before (I think) education is as a big a part of this problem as anything. I've always thought we could "change the numbers" in one generation with the right education.
 
Misreading a post is hardly having one's ass handed to them.
Misreading? Do you honestly believe that mac misread the post and that is why he asked where I got the information, then he went on to "disprove" what I said and stated that "Facts suck, don't they?" in an attempt to show how wrong I was?

But even allowing for a misread which it was not, one would believe that a person would have the honesty or debating integrity to say 'hey I misunderstood and ....' instead he accused me of spinning and making a lame argument. neither of which is correct. The OP is there, I made no comment of what the data I presented meant, only asked what if anything it meant for the abortion debate.

Are these the cheap victories we're looking for? Good luck with that yardstick.
If you read my past posts you know that I neither seek or claim victory as it does not exist. However, one does, over time, exhibit certain characteristics of their debating style. I am caustic, others are less than honest.
 
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