tecoyah

It is now Law in the United States, that a fetus is protected from harm while in the womb of its' mother. Would it not follow that should a woman lose her child, due to a fall or other unfortunate situation, she could be charged with a crime against the life she carried?
Unlikely as it may seem, the recent case of a woman criticized for waiting on a C- section and losing one of her twins, is case in point. She could now, very easily be charged with a serious crime for her choice to do as she pleased with her body(I am aware she was a freak in the eyes of most people).
My questions are as follows:

Where do the rights of the fetus superscede the rights of the Mother?

At what point does the court decide a group of cells has become a fetus?

In the case of miscarriage, is the mother guilty of manslaughter?

What is the underlying motivation to qualify an undeveloped human as sentient,thus giving it rights it has no way of comprehending?

Where does religion fit into this descision?

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lurkette

I'm not sure but I think the fetus is protected if the mother is harmed in the commission of a crime against her, the mother.

Whew, that's a shitty case. At what point do the motivations of the mother come into play? In this case, I think she didn't want a cesarean for cosmetic reasons (which is why there was such a fuss), but what if it was on religious grounds, or because she has a fear of surgery? Plus, we let selfish, shallow people have children all the time and fuck them up. Why should a fetus have more rights than an actual human?

Imagine that a mother can't afford prenatal care for some reason, and has a miscarriage that could arguably have been prevented. Is she guilty? What about her employer who didn't provide health insurance? What if she had access to prenatal care but chose not to use it? I can see this getting way the fuck out of hand. What if she had gestational diabetes but kept eating ice cream anyhow?

We give rights to others who have no way of comprehending those rights - infants, children, people with mental disabilities, etc. The issue isn't sentience or capacity to understand, it's the decision to declare that something that isn't technically an individual yet (do we give all embryos social security numbers on conception? Can I collect SS death benefits if I have a miscarriage? /callous smartass mode) has rights.

I predict this conversation deteriorates into the usual pointless argument when life begins in 3....2....1....

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filtherton

Is the child entitled to protections from unreasonable search and seizure? Is there a case to prohibit ultrasounds in light of this new right?

I think this law is silly. I'm sure there will be plenty of sore glad-hands in and around congress following its signing though.

matthew330

Where did you get the impression that in order to have rights, you must be able to comprehend them.

You can be pro-life without being religious.

7th - 8th week of development is usually the "fetal" period.

No, the mother is not guilty of manslaughter.

Time for lunch (thank god).

FoolThemAll

A-HA! This IS all about religion!

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SiN

[disclaimer] I usually stay out of the Politics Forum for various reasons, but I do have fairly strong opinions on this particular topic. Can't keep quiet. [/disclaimer]

I can't think of any where, tbh. (I'm not much of a 'fetal-rights' fan)


Nfi on the technical terms, tbh.

Hmm. In short, no.
However, this is not so simple. If the group of cells has reached the point of maturity where it could live on it's own without life support devices, and the mother does something extremely negligent to cause this miscarriage, then yes. Fair enough.

I surely have no answer to that one.

Abso-fucking-lutely nowhere, as far as laws are concerned.

There. my 2¢.

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onetime2

The new law makes it a crime to harm a fetus during an assault on a pregnant woman. It only applies while a federal crime is being commited against the pregnant woman and has no bearing on state laws.

Many states already have laws that confer "rights" to a fetus and criminals who injure a fetus during the commission of a crime can face additional counts.

So, unless the pregnant woman falls while she is committing a federal crime, it's not even remotely an issue.

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Lebell

I'm not 100% familiar with the wording of the new law, but like most laws, those zealous on the right will try to extend it while those zealous on the left will try to restrict it.

Personally, I can see a reason why additional charges should be brought against someone who, while in the commission of a crime, harms a fetus, but I can also see where this law might be the thin end of the wedge to be used against abortion rights.

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Ustwo

Not trying to get back into politics here but read the law.

Its only a crime if its a federal offense.

So perhaps your whole point is pointless at this time.

On a side note, my wife is pregnant, and if any attack on her caused the loss of the child, explain to me how thats different then if the child had just been born. Before you get up in arms about something, try thinking about both sides of the issue. Your extreme and make-believe examples are nothing but a straw man argument which bear no resemblance to the reality of the situation.

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tecoyah

Wow....and ouch.
I didnt mean to seem up in arms...and was actually posting in an attempt to understand the implications of the new law. I am well aware of both sides of the situation, having three children myself. That does not mean I don't require the input of others, with different perspectives, in an effort to gain more insight.

I was asking questions, not just making a statement.
If the examples were far fetched.....and upset you, I am sorry.

(edit) By the way....my thanx to the opinions given so far, quite helpful.

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iccky

I agree that at this time these questions don't apply, but i think its still think these are valid questions to ask. The law in its present form is a fairly good law, one that its hard to argue with. Since the fetus harmed is most likley going to be caried to term, the harm to the pregnant woman is causing harm to an actual human being, even if that human being won't exist for another few months. And I think we all can agree that an attack on a pregnant woman is a particularlly henious crime that deserves extra punishment.

That said, I worry that its a small step from here to charging pregnent women who drink or somke or do drugs with child abuse (I don't think they do this already, but I could be wrong). There are certianly arguments that could be made for laws like this, but then certainly these questions would come into play.

onetime2

Some states do already have such laws.

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bermuDa

I think I heard about this on NPR. As much as I'd like to see people who kill pregnant go away for an extra long time, I'm afraid that a law that recognizes a fetus as a separate entity from the mother and another charge of murder/manslaughter is just an attempt to chip away at roe v. wade. And the thought that a miscarriage qualifies as manslaughter makes me wonder what an abortion would be called. Would planning a trip to the abortion clinic be considered conspiracy to commit murder?

As much as I want murderers who kill pregnant women to suffer as much as possible (as in the peterson case, actually I think this is called laci and conner's bill). If we give the anti-choice crowd any slack in this area they will use it to demolish the precedence set in 1973.

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kutulu

This law is just setting the table for challenges against abortion.

FoolThemAll

And it's easy to see how. If you're going to treat it as less than human, be consistent. As long as abortion is legally okey-dokey, Mr. Peterson wasn't a double murderer. He committed one murder and destroyed property.

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smooth

Scott Peterson isn't a murderer, at all, yet.

If convicted, however, the difference between Scott and some random killer is that he knew Laci was pregnant. I think that should be kept in mind when interpreting the ramifications of this law.

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FoolThemAll

Sure. He would have known that not only was he murdering a human begin, but he was also destroying some of her stuff as well. Whatever that's worth, that would indeed ring true.

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j8ear

The resitance to this by the pro-choice camp will turn out to be a huge loss for their cause, IMHO.

Just as resistance to partial birth abortion has.

Imagine the 'constitution' of someone who opposes this new law, protecting an unborn yet wanted fetus, and it's mother? Who in their right mind would be against this. Who in a lucid mind would support a cause so championed by someone opposed to this.

If there are dangers to infringing on a women's codified right to kill, I haven't heard, read or been directed to a source making the agrument effectively. If one exists please show me.

Current abortion rules will be over turned. I believe this will turn a 50/50 issue into a very pro-life one in less then a generation.

-bear

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mml

I generally don't like "slippery slope" arguements, but this law was conceived (no pun intended) and nurtured by anti-abortion groups as a first step in establishing the rights of the unborn. So it is fair to ask questions as to where this type of legislation will lead. The line: "The legislation defines a potential victim as a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.", really opens the door for a test case to overthrow Roe v Wade.

I certainly think that supporters and opponents of this bill look at the murder of an unborn child, in the act of a federal crime, as something that is highly disturbing. The real question is where we go from here? I think it only makes our legal system stonger if we look at all of the possible outcomes of a law, since future laws are based on precident.

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tecoyah

This is more the direction I was hoping this thread would go. While I am sure we could discuss the moral implications of this law for months, I was hoping to see what legal ramifications were possible. I am aware the law is directed towards violent felony attack against a pregnant woman, but we all know the inclinations of the courts to re-interpret law.
Thus my original questions.

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Ustwo

So you are saying my unborn child should have no protection under the law because you WORRY that in the future someone might not be able to have an abortion? The current law is VERY clear, if anything is going to change it would require more laws and you can argue about them.

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j8ear

Well, yes, of course.

Good of the many out weigh good of the few after all.

/end sarcasm.

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fuzyfuzer

" At what point does the court decide a group of cells has become a fetus?"

i don't think any one has said this but i belive it 100% a fetus when we are capable of keeping the baby alive under unatural means i.e. outside of the mothers womb

i think when mothers atempt an abortion at this point it is terribly wrong and immoral

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hannukah harry

not only what <b>j8ear</b> said, but i believe your unborn child is already protected in that it is illegal to hurt the mother, whether little ustwo is in the womb or not.

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Ustwo

Punch a pregnant woman in the stomach a few times, baby dies, mom is ok, you are arrested for assault. No different then being in a bar fight.

Justice is?

P.S. reread j8ear's post, you missed the point.

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filtherton

Just a sidenote: unless you can somehow make it a federal crime it doesn't apply.

Actually, even though it has been dubbed "laci and conner's bill" it wouldn't have applied to them anyway for just that reason.

Ustwo

I know I already posted that, but this slippery slope argument some seem to be clinging to is stupid.

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filtherton

I don't know either way. Time will tell, as it always does.

qtpye4u84

miscarriages and abortion Have emo effects on the mother, I think man slaughter should only be charged on the person that Harms the mother and makes her lose the baby if it wasent an accident. If the mother does it its her choice, But if she gives
birth to it then she kills it and hides it or puts it in a dumpster then she should probably get charged with some thing.

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iccky

I think you need to do a little better than that. Lat me lay it out since it may not have been stated clearly enough in the past.

This law, for the first time, recognizes that an unborn child is an entity in and of itself. The intention of the anti-abortion groups who championed this bill is to achive this recognition so that in the future more rights may be attributed to a fetus including, possibly, the right not to be killed in the first trimester.

The effect of this is to frame the debate in a different light. Instead of abortion being about a woman's right to do something with her body, it becomes a debate about a woman's right to do something with an entity that is legally recognized to have rights independant of its mother. That's a very serious change, and one that makes banning abortion easier.

I agree that this is a pretty good argument for this kind of law. But I don't think the slippery slope argument can be dispensed with that easily.

Ustwo

The slippery slope argument is simply not valid. Perhaps in the future there will be more laws passed that outlaw abortion, but that is its own issue. If we can have harsher penalties for hate crimes, as asinine as that is, why can't we have harsher penalties for damage/death to a fetus? Is abortion so important that we must ignore justice just because maybe in some future the people of America decide to limit abortions? Perhaps the reason so many pro-abortion people fear this 'slippery slope' is they have come to realize that being pro-abortion is not a majority issue and they are afraid of it ever coming to a vote? They then fight any legislation no matter how just hoping to keep the issue of abortion out of the legislative branches?

GWB has stated many times that he only supports abortion in cases of rape, incest, and where the health of the mother is in danger, and the deepest darkest fear of the pro-abortion people is that someday such a position would come to a popular vote because its pretty clear it would pass. But you have to ask yourself is the fear of such a vote on abortion as a form of birth control, WORTH opposing fair and just laws?

What kind of person does that make you?

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