Conservatives And Your Fetus
In yet another big step in the slow and sneaky march to stomp out abortion, Jim Abrams of AP reports:
In a major win for social conservatives, Congress is sending to the president legislation that would expand the legal rights of the unborn by making it a separate crime to harm a fetus during an assault on a pregnant woman.The Unborn Victims of Violence Act cleared the Senate on a 61-38 vote Thursday, a month after the House passed the bill and five years after conservatives first tried to move the legislation through Congress.
The measure is limited in scope, applying only to harm to a fetus while a federal crime is being committed against the pregnant mother, such as terrorist attacks, drug-related shootings or attacks on federal lands or military bases. But proponents on both sides of the fetal rights and abortion issue saw far-reaching consequences.
Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said that with the president's signature, "our nation will be one giant step closer to rebuilding a culture of life, where every child, born and unborn, is given the protections they so clearly deserve." President Bush (news - web sites) has urged Congress to send a bill to his desk.
But the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, Kate Michelman, said it would be the first time ever in federal law that an embryo or fetus is recognized as a distinct person, separate from the woman. "Much of this is preparing for the day the Supreme Court has a majority that will overrule Roe v. Wade (news - web sites)," the 1973 Supreme Court decision affirming a woman's right to end a pregnancy.
Bye-bye women's rights! Hello, coat hangers! Sound farfetched to you that women could soon become Margaret Atwood-style baby pods? It sounds less and less farfetched to me every day.
Gah, don't even joke about that, Amy. Of course, in The Handmaid's Tale there was a right-wing coup. Here, the U.S. voters (arguably, barely, I'll admit) elected them.
M at March 30, 2004 6:19 AM
that's one thing i never did understand. how it could not be a baby when the mother wanted to kill it, but if someone else did, all of a sudden it was a human life that was so tragically taken. give me a break and make up your mind! is it a baby or a fetus, stick with one please. i think as long as abortion is legal, you can't charge someone with that crime. but we all know how i feel about abortion, so we'll leave that debate for a later date.
Lauren at March 30, 2004 7:12 AM
Lauren, it's not a person unless it's born, it's a possibility of a person. I posted this because I don't agree with it. Further remedial blog translation will be slow in coming, as I'm on deadline.
Amy Alkon at March 30, 2004 7:27 AM
boy i didn't want to get into this debate. it's a person at the momment of conception, you will never convince me otherwise. and i didn't post that to argue with you or to say that i thought that you should make up your mind. i simply stated it to those who feel that they can pick and choose when it's a baby and when it's not. so, gulp gulp, we actually sort of agree on something.
Lauren at March 30, 2004 7:32 AM
It's a person to the family who's been hoping, waiting, and preparing for it. Who's named it, painted the nursery, and wants it. So whether you consider it a fetus doesn't matter--if someone causes a woman to lose her unborn child through violence, to her she lost a person that she was looking forward to meeting.
Peggy C at March 30, 2004 8:35 AM
if it's a person, then it's a person. you can't all of a sudden say that it's not because it fits your fancy. just because someone wants it doesn't change what people say about it. i believe that it's a person from the very beginning, so i can't say, hey i don't want this child so it's a fetus. and what if the woman was going to have an abortion, but was then attacked and decided, hey i can get this guy for more, "he killed my baby". you can't pick and choose, it's either one or the other, not both. if a woman can kill it, then the guy should be able to charge her with murder because he might have wanted it, it's his baby too. but alas, that will never work because the woman decided for everyone that it wasn't a baby. sorry, but that makes no sense, you can't have it both ways.
Lauren at March 30, 2004 9:27 AM
Does making it a separate crime necessarily mean the fetus is a person? I mean, if someone breaks into your house and, while there, smashes up some valuable crystal, I assume he could be charged with both "breaking and entering" and vandalism/destruction of property.
On reflection: Making it a separate crime simply adds to the courtload. If a drunk driver kills someone, are they tried separately for the murder charge and the DUI charge? Seems like the latter is simply treated as an exacerbating factor to the former.
LYT at March 30, 2004 10:20 AM
I was looking at the OC 'bail' fees, because I got a ticket and wanted to know what it was going to cost me. There's commentary in there that if a misdemeanor and felony occur at the same time, bail is set at the felony level, unless it's a repeat offense then there are ways to increase it. It's pretty well laid out in advance. So I'm assuming that everything is charged at the same time under the major crime. I think there are cases (like Class Action suits) where there is more than one plaintiff, so I don't think it would require a separate trial.
Lauren, as far as saying I can't pick and choose--I didn't state which side of the debate I am on. I was simply stating that whether I consider it a fetus or a baby won't lessen the loss to the mother, and so if she wants the crime that causes her to lose the fetus/baby to be counted as happening to the fetus/baby separate from her charges, I don't blame her. She was counting on having the child and most likely looking forward to it, so to her it's a loss of a person not just a fetus.
Peggy C at March 30, 2004 10:57 AM
keep up the good work keeping us ladies informed i just started reading your blog today now i cant wait and see what else you've got!! i am reading your column in the source published in bend oregon . really wish i could read more of your stuff :)
patty at March 30, 2004 2:02 PM
though amy might have you to believe this is an evil bush scheme to rip away all your hopes and dreams of living frivolous, lecherous lives, this article (http://slate.msn.com/id/2097927/) posted on slate might say otherwise. here's one quote:
Last year, 52 senators voted for an amendment declaring that Roe "secures an important constitutional right" and "should not be overturned." Fourteen of those 52 pro-choice senators voted Thursday for UVVA. Four of them voted against an amendment to UVVA, offered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would have preserved UVVA's penalties for assaults on pregnant women while changing its language to avoid a collision with abortion rights. Feinstein's amendment was the sole alternative put forward by abortion rights supporters. It was the whole ball game, and those four senators held the balance of power. With their support, Feinstein's amendment would have been adopted, and abortion rights would be safe. Instead, the amendment failed, 50 to 49.
tami at March 30, 2004 2:10 PM
Amy over-reacts since (the highly improbable) over-turning Rowe v. Wade would only turn the subject of abortion into an issue of federalism. Prior to Rowe, roughly 70% of American women lived in areas of the country where abortion was already legal. There are actually a few prominent decidedly liberal legal scholars (one, I believe, a professor at Harvard) who think Rowe, while agreeing that abortion should be legal, was horrible jurisprudence (as it in fact was).
Robert at March 30, 2004 3:11 PM
"though amy might have you to believe this is an evil bush scheme to rip away all your hopes and dreams of living frivolous, lecherous lives,"
Wow tami, I'm not having nearly as much fun as I should be having. I'd better get right out there and have a whole bunch of safe sex while I can still get information on it and have an abortion should it become necessary for me to make that choice.
But seriously, I've been in a relationship for ten years. Prior to that I was married for several years. I've used birth control and in one case excercised my right to have an abortion. Why? Because I was frivolous and lecherous? My romantic resume hardly suggests that, but because I carry a nasty virus that I would be 80% likely to pass on to a child, because I have a dear friend who has the same virus watch her teenage son die because he couldn't get a iiver transplant, because finally, this virus has so damaged my heart muscle that I doubt I would live to see my child become a teen.
Those don't seem like frivolous choices to me, but very painful choices made by a woman who thanks the lord every day that she lives in a country where she has the right to make those choices for her body and her life.
Would the like of George Bush and other religious conservatives take away my right and the rights of other women to make those choices? You bet they would. So do yourself a favor girl and get out there and have some fun.
Sheryl at March 30, 2004 9:54 PM
sheryl,
my intent was not to point out errors made by those who have had abortions. i understand that it is a choice that is difficult for most. yes, i believe that having an abortion is a wrong choice -- that's my opinion and i'm entitled to it. i don't hate you or anything. i am sad for you.
i'm sorry if i offended you. my choice of wording was not directed at you, but at amy.
as for me, give me 5 more months and i'll be having all the fun i can handle. my safe sex won't involve condoms. i'll be having it au naturale because of the choices i and my partner-to-be have made.
tami at April 1, 2004 7:38 AM
" living frivolous, lecherous lives,"
I don't like children. I find them irritating, with a few exceptions -- and only for brief periods of time. I like them as social beings, I'm not patient enough to have one or more as a responsibility. Is this "frivolous"? On the contrary. I wish more people who have kids as the next chic accessory, or because they want something cute that looks like them, would think likewise.
As far as "lecherous" goes, I have one dead young friend (Marnye), whose picture is on this page on your left, and another brain damaged young friend in the hospital. You see it as wrong to have pleasure; probably because you were raised to be a Puritan. There couldn't be a more anti-life way of living.
I hope Marnye had A LOT OF SEX the week she died. And loved all of it.
Amy Alkon at April 1, 2004 9:01 AM
amy,
sure, kids are annoying sometimes, but so are grown-ups. i don't like most kids either. but i sure as heck love MY kids (those are my nieces and nephews - shout out to Chase, Cole, Mikaila, Greyson, Brianna, Emma and comming soon, Levi). do they get on my nerves? heck yeah! but that doesn't mean they are unwanted.
it's not frivolous not to have kids. it's frivilous to kill one b/c it *might* interfere with your "life". [please don't get into the whole "it's not a kid until it's born debate" either. it bores me.] i don't ask people to not have sex, i only ask people to live with the consequences of their actions.
as for me and my puritanical beliefs... apparently you think i live a dull life and that i'm missing out on all the fun. i don't feel that way at all. i am not sheltered and i am not boring. i choose to live differently from you; and what's so wrong with that?
i don't believe it is wrong to have pleasure. i believe, though, that there is a season for everything under the sun. and i happen to believe that the only circumstances under which it is right for two people to have sex is within the confines of marriage. i'm all about pleasure, but i am not willing to sacrifice the long-run for the immediate. don't you worry about me, ames -- my season is comming.
tami at April 1, 2004 1:56 PM
Then again, it's not the mother who kills the fetus/baby/person/mass of tissue, it's the doctor she hires to do it.
"Women's control over their own bodies" is a poor choice of words, in that women cannot give themselves abortions. (Well, I suppose they _could_, but it would be pretty rare (I'm thinking coat hangers here)). Almost all of the time, they have to hire someone else to do it. They have to offer money to someone who must ALSO make the moral choice of whether or not it's cool to do this.
How many people in the operating room at an abortion? ALL of them there are taking part in killing a baby. ALL of them have made the moral choice to do this, upon being contracted to do so by the mother.
There are somewhere around 1.5 MILLION abortions per year these days. I wonder how many of those were done because of the mother's fear of passing along her nasty virus? I wonder how many of those were done because the amnio said the baby was deformed or was going to be retarded?
I wonder how many of those were done because the people having sex together didn't give a darn? Or because they FORGOT that the primary purpose of sex is reproduction?
Matt at April 13, 2004 3:26 PM
Sorry that you fundamentalist wing nuts haven't gotten to the subject of science yet, but a fetus is not a person -- it's a potential person. And why a woman doesn't want to pump out a child is her business, not yours. There would be fewer abortions, by the way, if the other morons in your movement would emphasize contraception instead of abstinence -- especially to teens.
Amy Alkon at April 13, 2004 4:28 PM
I don't think name-calling is constructive to the discussion, Amy, especially if we're going to pretend that we respect each other's opinions.
I do know a few bits about science, having earned a chemical engineering degree. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, science certainly hasn't stated with certainty the level of "personhood" a fetus attains. That argument has always been left up to the factions to argue about.
I didn't say it WAS my business as to how a woman wants to terminate her pregnancy; I just wanted to point out the obvious: that in order for a woman to excercise her "right" to an abortion, she needs to make sure that she can hire others who have to, for themselves, also make the moral choice involved in the process.
Sounds like it goes beyond a "personal choice" at that point to me. A woman is asking others to medically murder her fetus for money.
Wouldn't it be interesting if, hypothetically, all medical professionals deemed abortions morally repugnant for themselves to take part in and refused to do them? A woman would still have her "right" to abort, but how would she get it done? Where's the "control over her own body" woman like to assert at that point?
As to contraception/abstinence argument, I don't believe for a minute that 1.5 million/year result from lack of information on contraception. That's one heck of a pile of ignorance, if that's the case.
Matt at April 14, 2004 8:10 AM