Bill introduced to propose unborn as victims of crime

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That make a lot of sense and thanks for bringing it up, because unfortanetly cases like this may happen.... however what about a young fetus? How would a law like this treat the situation that you just stated, but rather the baby be 8 months, but 3 months instead?

Or lets try this: A woman who is 3 months pregnant and is on her way to get a abortion... she is assulted and the fetus dies. The woman could just use the fetal death as a excuse to lay an extra charge on the attacker. (The attacker should get a long sentence anyway but you get what I am trying to say)

I am sure this law has it's heart in the right place, but there are too many holes in it.

Nature (or god, whichever) is not responsible for this particular case though. This is a human being going out and killing another. That potential child could very well have become a real child; there's no way of being sure that it wouldn't have. I don't particularly care about what nature thinks in this instance; it's not involved.



By actual child, I meant one who breathed in the real air for a very, very short time; no more than a few hours. In that case, you can make him/her into anything you want as well.

The baby is not a sure thing either. Babies die all the time, for various reasons. One can have a baby for no more than a day before he/she dies.

To many people, unborn children are still children. It's an emotional bond between them, and the fact that the baby may never have survived long enough to grow up doesn't change that.

In this case, it doesn't really matter whether or not the woman would have lost the unborn child naturally. There's a very real chance that the babe would have survived through the rest of pregnancy and into childhood. It's not nature that's intervening in this; it's a human being who is not the mother and thus should not have a say in whether or not that baby gets the chance to live. It's a crime that's been committed, not a act of natural life.

I would think that a young fetus wouldn't be treated much differently than an older one. Obviously, of course, people vary in their definition of when life begins, but every "real" baby went through that stage once. As long as the mother had intended to keep her child, there would be the possibility of it forming into "life" (or whatever people like to call it). Of course, as I'm sure LKL will point out, there's a higher chance of losing the baby then naturally. However, it's not a fact that she would have lost the baby for sure, so it shouldn't be treated any differently, in my opinion.



I see what you're saying. Presumably, there'd be record of her intending to have the procedure done, at which point the attacker's attorneys may have a good advantage of getting him out of that charge. It wouldn't be correct for her to use that charge, considering she was planning to rid herself of the child anyway, but it's definitely a possibility. I have some faith in our justice department though, and I assume the judge would throw out that charge, or perhaps the grand jury would refuse to indite the attacker for that particular crime.



Most likely, yeah. I would think that there'd be some fine tuning as it went on, but one never knows.

I just don't understand why so many people here are against it. No where does it state that it affects abortions at all.

RainSong, I realize that we are talking about an attack and not a natural miscarriage, but I bring up miscarriages because they are relevant to the position that society takes on the value of a fetus. Yes, to you both, born children die as well - but the risk goes down precipitously the older the z/e/f/baby is. A newly fertilized egg has a slightly greater chance of being bled out with menstrual blood or spontaneously aborted (~60%) than it does of becoming a baby. Once it has implanted in the uterus, that risk goes down to something like 40%. Once it gets past 4 months, the risk drops way down again; I don't know the numbers, but less than 15%. Clearly, society should not treat a criminal who destroys a 4-month old pregnancy - or, heavens forbid, an 8 month old one! the same way we would treat a criminal who destroys a 1 month old pregnancy. At 8 months, the fetus would be 'born early' rather than 'spontaneously aborted.'

At any point past 4 months, the fetus is probably going to become a baby, but it's still not a given. The likelihood of death the day before birth is still much higher than the likelihood of death the day after birth. This is simple reality. It's nice to think that everything will turn out fine every time, but that's simply not realistic. The law should reflect reality, not wishful thinking, and the reality is that a z/e/f is a potential or probable baby, not a real one.

Most importantly, though, this law is not necessary. If a man attacks a pregnant woman and kills her fetus, He can already be charged with assault and battery causing grievous bodily harm to the woman. He can be put into jail for years, and he will not be treated respectfully while he is there.

What about a women who is 6 months pregnant and is in a serious accident? The baby has to be delivered prematurely due to her injuries. The baby is born deaf and with other injuries due the accident. Is the person who caused the accident liable for the suffering and injuries to the baby or just the mother?

At least here in Michigan, the mother and child can be compensated.

It's difficult to imagine a situation where a baby would be safer outside the womb at 6 months than inside the womb, unless the mother's uterus and/or the baby's placenta or umbilicus were damaged - in which case, there was some pretty darn significant injury to the mother.

I think bills like that open up a rotten, smelly can of worms. A fetus should not have rights. If we start to give protections to such things, Roe vs Wade will collapse.

And I don't think any woman should be forced to remain pregnant against her will.

This law reminds me of the hate laws on the books. It is just as difficult to argue in court that a person killed another person because they have a hatred to that particular group as it is to prove that a person who commits a crime against a pregnant woman knew the women was pregnant in the first place unless the former was in the KKK and the latter's victim was in a late stage of pregnancy.

Laws aren't meant to be emotive. You can't argue that a potential mother is more of a victim than say a male or a woman who wasn't pregnant at the time that a crime was commited against him or her. People should pay the piper for the crime that they committed not for the type of victim that was harmed. It cheapens the whole legal process to use the courts for a moral political agenda.

Women: if you don't want to be pregnant, don't have sex.

You're assuming women have full choice in the matter. The time I got pregnant it was from rape. That happens less often now to adults (though not children) now that they have the morning after pill, but not everyone thinks the morning after pill should be available. And some would argue that the Pill is abortion, because it allows conception, but then doesn't allow the embryo to implant, so it shouldn't be available either.

Choice is not that simple. It requires a certain amount of power.

As far as fetal rights goes, what exactly is the purpose of this bill? Maybe there's another way of accomplishing the same thing.

Choice is choice.

Rape babies, obviously, are not choice.

But how often do rape pregnancies happen compared to consensual pregnancies?

Well if you dont like abortion, dont have one.

Agreeing to sex is not agreeing to produce a child. That's why we have birth control. If a couple is conscientious about their birth control, but the birth control fails, that couple should not be forced to bring a child into the world that they don't want. Within a marriage, refusing to have sex even after a couple had all of the children they wanted was grounds for divorce even before no-fault laws. Sex in humans is about emotional bonding as much as about reproduction, so your statement, "...if you don't want to be pregnant, don't have sex," is essentially the same as saying, "...if you don't want to be pregnant, don't practice physical emotional bonding with your significant other."

If they want the child but it is later determined to have some deformation, no one but the parents has the right to determine if they have the strength and the will to care for a child with that particular deformity. If the parents want the child but the mother is later diagnosed with a condition that makes her likely to die or be permanently injured by delivering the child or carrying it to term (which does happen, despite anti-choice propaganda), no one but the mother has a right to decide how much she should sacrifice for her potential child.

You will say, "they could place the child up for adoption," but that ignores the tens of thousands of children in foster care who have no families.

I'd think that the death of a fetus (before it had a significant chance of surviving outside the womb) by criminal hands should fall more under civil matters than criminal ones. Something along the lines of that the formerly pregnant woman and other involved members of her family could demand that compensation could be paid by the offender (especially if a significant amount of money was paid in preparation for the baby, such as on medical expenses, moving to a bigger house, redecorating, buying baby-related necessities, etc., or if they had counseling expenses due to the loss of the fetus), but that aspect of the attack itself should not be factored in when it comes to jail time.

A potential person is only equal to a full person through anthropomorphizing. Before awareness sets in, the only person that existed was a person in other people's heads, a "might be" or rather a "might have been" that is more for their comfort and aid in understanding than it is based in what is. And yes, awareness and levels thereof do matter. Torturing a cat could get someone in trouble. Picking a flower off a plant would not. Both things are alive. One just happens to be able to feel, which makes all the difference.

I guess one of the intentions of this bill is to protect pregnant women from being beaten by people that think that they will not get punished for killing the unborn baby.
(violent partners have done this)