LAST THURSDAY, President Bush signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (H.R. 1997), or "Laci and Conner's Law." This measure recognizes two victims in any federal crime that causes injury or death to a pregnant woman and her unborn child and protects the "child in utero" as "a member of the species homo sapiens at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."
H.R. 1997 is a just and necessary measure. In December 2002, Laci and Conner Peterson (her unborn son) were tragically murdered. Conner is a separate victim in their case under California law. Had the crime occurred under federal jurisdiction or in one of the 21 states that does not have fetal homicide laws, Conner's murder would not be acknowledged. Dozens of women and their families have testified before Congress to demand recognition of the tragic impact on two lives of violent acts against pregnant women. For too long, federal law has denied these women and their children justice.
President Bush's decision to sign H.R. 1997 represents the will of the American public. According to a July 2003 Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, 79 percent of Americans, including 69 percent of those who identify themselves as "pro-choice," believe that "if a violent physical attack on a pregnant woman leads to the death of her unborn child... prosecutors should be able to charge the attacker with murder for killing the fetus." Only 10 percent of Americans disagree.
To justify their support of legalized abortion, the pro-choice movement denies that the unborn are human beings. Attempting to protect their ideology without appearing insensitive to the pain of pregnant victims and their families, radical voices have proposed legislation that differentiates a crime against a pregnant woman while renouncing the human life of her unborn child.
The language of these proposed amendments is illogical. The single-victim approach claims that no one dies when a criminal injures a woman and kills her unborn child, yet simultaneously imposes a penalty (up to life in prison) that applies only to cases where life is lost. Under an amendment proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Ca., a criminal who kills a pregnant woman incurs a double penalty, one for the death of the mother and another for her loss of "pregnancy." Quite simply, a dead woman cannot suffer any loss, let alone the vague abstraction of a "pregnancy." The law punishes murderers for directly ending human life, not for the loss of hopes and dreams that is already implicit in the crime. A double penalty when a murder victim's hopes and dreams happen to involve giving birth in the near future is incoherent before the law and unjustifiable.
Those opposing H.R. 1997 ignore standard medical practice. Current technology allows doctors to successfully operate on fetuses, such as to correct for spina bifida. Medical professionals collect two sets of data during surgery, one each for the child and the mother. The child's information becomes a permanent part of his or her medical history. There are two blood types, two temperatures, two procedures, two lives. These operations are not performed on a woman's "pregnancy" but on an unborn child. Given medical recognition of a separate life within the mother and the logical fallacy of the proposed amendment, justice demands that criminals who kill pregnant women face two murder counts.
Despite the facts, some oppose Laci and Conner's Law only because they believe it directly affects abortion law under Roe v. Wade. It is difficult to understand why these advocates consider their vision of abortion on demand more important than justice for pregnant women and their unborn children who fall victim to violence. Even given these priorities, there is no legitimate reason to oppose the new legislation, which explicitly states that the law does not apply to consensual abortion or to the legal or illegal acts of the mother. It further does not treat pregnant women as "mere vessels," as Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt claims, since fetal homicide laws apply only after charges for violence against the woman. H.R. 1997 is just or unjust without reference to abortion and deserves independent scrutiny.
After a careful analysis of the arguments surrounding the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, there is no grounds for opposition except to uphold dogmatic ideology that relegates the unborn to sub-human status. Regardless of one's position on abortion, it is indefensible to willingly sacrifice justice, disregard medical truth and stifle a law that the majority of Americans support in order to preserve one's doctrine. Supporting the Unborn Victims of Violence Act is simply common sense.
Samantha Kepler and Christine Elliott are the president and vice president of First Right.
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