What the FUCK?

Are you kidding?

Is it really the leading cause of death for pregnant women? Source, please!

Holy crap.

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but since the headline states he's getting the death penalty for killing the fetus, and since he was convicted of one count of capital murder, does that mean the murder of the walking incubator, er, I mean, the pregnant girl wasn't prosecuted at all?

On a related note, when Scott Peterson was convicted for murdering pregnant Laci Peterson, wasn't he convicted on two counts of murder?

In California?

I hope I'm not wrong on this.

I'm with boltgirl - One count of capital murder indicates he was convicted either for killing the girl, or the fetus, but not both.

Also, what the fuck? Focussing on the 3 month old fetus and more or less ignoring the death of the mother is horrifying. I cannot believe they didn't even mention her in the headline. How awful.

That AP article was cut mercilessly (not to mention the headline was written by some idiot other than the writer).

From the original article:

"Depending on the circumstances, a capital murder charge may require more than one murder, Simpson said. In Estrada's case, the killings of Sanchez and her unborn child counted as two people."

Oh, and unfortunately, yes, Katie, according to a study published in 2005 in the American Journal of Public Health, homicide is the leading cause of death for pregnant women:

Homicide: A Leading Cause of Injury Deaths Among Pregnant and Postpartum Women in the United States, 1991–1999

Tajour--thanks for the clarification. Not that it makes the situation "better," but the AP article did make the 17-year-old seem something of an afterthought.

In Japan, the headline read "One Baby Killed and One Baby Machine Forced to Shut Down Operations"

More cheery facts from the Family Violence Prevention Fund:

* On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day.

* Pregnant and recently pregnant women are more likely to be victims of homicide than to die of any other cause, and evidence exists that a significant proportion of all female homicide victims are killed by their intimate partners.

Without getting too preachy, I'll just say that it can't hurt to know some of the warning signs of abuse (websites abound), and if you suspect it's happening to a friend, don't be shy about offering to help and sticking by her throughout the long and difficult process of deciding to leave. Every time I read a news story like this, it just kills me inside. Nobody wants to talk about domestic violence, and this is the result.

norbiz, I just snorted water through my nose :)

This is so gross. He gets death for killing a non-viable fetus, but a 17-year-old girl? Eh. I guess she was a slut for sleeping with her youth pastor, and got what was coming to her (and of course we'd never punish the youth pastor (incidentally, a 23-year-old youth pastor??????) for doing what comes naturally. Boys will be boys, you know).

(btw, what happened to Jill Stanek? I'd just like to point out, if she ever reads this, that the ratio of creepy youth pastors to creepy abortionists is now 2:1).

How can anyone apply the term "individual" to something that cannot live separately from and is physically attached to its host? Wha?

Regarding the homicide thing:

Murder is a leading cause of injury death to pregnant women, but this does *not* necessarily mean that pregnant women are murdered at higher rates than non-pregnant women... though it's certainly possible, given that a pregnant woman needs to focus at least somewhat on herself and her health, and a narcissistic abuser might flip out about that.

But it may also mean that pregnant women are more careful to avoid situations that could cause accidental injury. A responsible pregnant woman won't be found up on a ladder trying to get her son's toy off the roof.

(The article in question actually said "a" leading cause, so I wonder what the stats are for pregnant women and car-related injuries, as death by car seems no more avoidable when pregnant than not pregnant.)

Stories like Laci Peterson's make major news, so we may be getting the idea that pregnant women are highly likely to be murdered. However, there's a difference between "pregnant women are more likely to be murdered than to die in an accident", "pregnant women are more likely to be murdered than non-pregnant women" and "pregnant women are likely to be murdered." We can be fairly sure the last one isn't true, and the abstract linked doesn't actually talk about the second one, so all we know is the first one, which *could* mean pregnant women get murdered more often than other women or *could* mean they die by accident less often.

As for this story... I am of two minds about this. I oppose the death penalty, but the vindictive part of my soul says that if anyone deserves to die for his crimes, it's a person who murders a pregnant woman, particularly if the killer is the father of her child. And I oppose laws that make a fetus a separate person with independent rights from the mother, but at the same time, I know that as a mother, if I was beaten while pregnant and had a miscarriage I would completely consider it murder and want the perpetrator prosecuted far beyond simple assault. I think perhaps I'm not opposed to considering a fetus a person so long as the rights of that person can never under any circumstances trump the rights of the person whose body it lives in; I'm sorry, but if you're going to live in another human being, you damn well need that person's permission and enthusiastic support, and if *they* want to kill you to get you out, you should not have jack to say about it. On the other hand, if they want you there, then no one else should have the right to kill you.

I wish we could enact some sort of common-sense law along those lines; no one should have the right to live inside another human without explicit permission, period, and it is permissible self-defense to kill a person to stop them from living inside you. If we could just codify *that* into law we could afford to let fetuses be considered people. But the religious right wants too badly to punish women for having sex to ever allow us to have any common sense about the subject.

I am pro choice, but a few of these posts are making me feel pretty darned squeamish. I don't understand why people tend to thing it's necessary to be able to flippantly describe abortion as killing simply because they support the right to have one. Ah, but I guess those crazy fetuses must be stopped from hijacking women's bodies! It's not as though fetuses often exist because of consensual sex.

paleblue, I don't understand your point. You don't think abortion is killing? I think we kind of have to agree that it is -- a fetus, whatever else it is, is most definitely alive. I don't happen to think it's a human person, but it's still something that, technically, yeah, you kill. I kill bugs, too, and don't feel a damned thing admitting to it.

Alara, I agree with the vindictive thing and wanting to protect pregnant women but I think we also need to be careful that we don't start valuing the lives of pregnant women over non-pregnant women, because then we run the risk of saying that women are most valuable if they can be used as baby incubators. As someone who never intends to become pregnant (but would probably like to be a mother someday, by adoption), I find that notion more than a little offensive. I'm opposed to the death penalty, but if we're going to have it, we need it to apply equally to murders of ALL women, regardless of whether or not they happen to be allowing a foreign organism to grow inside of them at the precise moment.

[quote]I wish we could enact some sort of common-sense law along those lines; no one should have the right to live inside another human without explicit permission, period, and it is permissible self-defense to kill a person to stop them from living inside you. If we could just codify *that* into law we could afford to let fetuses be considered people. But the religious right wants too badly to punish women for having sex to ever allow us to have any common sense about the subject.[/quote]
That's just fantastic

We don't really need that commonsense law, because there's no evidence of any kind to support the hypothesis that a fetus prior to the Roe standard is a person, and it's downright nonsensical to describe a first-trimester embryo as a person.

But all in all, I think abortion is pretty hairy surgery relative to EC or traditional contraception, and I'd love it if these "pro-lifers" would promote the hell out of EC and work on getting rid of most abortions that way.

Re the fetal homicide laws, I'm afraid that in all honesty these don't bother me a bit. If the woman intended to carry the pregnancy to term, then the fetus is a potential person and I can see the argument for treating the fetus as a full person for prosecutorial reasons. And certainly we're dealing with more than a simple case of assault if a woman, intending to carry her pregnancy to term, has that pregnancy violently and deliberately terminated against her will.

The only thing that bothers me about these laws is that they do potentially set up a legislative precedent for overturning Roe at a later date, but as long as they don't have that effect, I personally have no problem with fetal homicide laws. I'm not a supporter of the death penalty, but men who murder their pregnant wives and girlfriends are pretty much at the top of my "I don't really give a shit if they're executed" list.

Cheers,

TH

In Superiour Court v. Keeler, (Cal. 1970), California's highest court determined that a fetus was not a "person" for the purposes of the homicide law, even though abortion was illegal. The facts: a man found his ex-wife, saw that she was pregnant with another man's child, and attacked her, stating something to the effect of beating the baby out of her.

Maybe I'm crazy or overly pragmatic, but the fact that the law is the exact opposite of that is a good thing.

As for the headline: unless I missed the memo, headlines capture news, which is things out of the ordinary. People getting the death penalty for murdering adults is not news. A person who is the first to be convicted of murder for killing a fetus is news.

If causing a miscarriage brought no additional penalties, then a man who beats a woman until she spontaneously aborts cannot do anything more than charge him with assault. Her baby is dead, her body is wrecked from the experience, and she doesn't have recourse. He had the mens rea to kill; he wasn't thinking that he is unburdening her of a blob of cells - he is trying to hurt her by killing her baby.

I think it was probably a bad headline, but a good decision.

I have to agree with you, oenophile. If the woman wants to carry the fetus to term, forcibly and intentionally terminating that pregnancy against the woman's will is a form of homicide and should be prosecuted accordingly.

The fact that the fetus is not a person is irrelevant; the fetus would in all likelihood become a person if the woman's inviolate right to make her own reproductive decisions were honored.

Cheers,

TH

Thanks, Tom Head.

We can all agree that a woman who is beaten until she miscarries has been assaulted in ways that aren't expressed through ordinary A&B charges. We need the elevated punishment in response to the increased harm to the woman.

It is difficult, though, to have this in a post-Roe world. Beyond six months, there is no inconsistency between the abortionist and the perpetrator. Before that point, though, the act of inducing a miscarriage will have different penalties, which is legally inconsistent.

As feminists, we need to find a way to write laws that are consistent with each other but allow women to prosecute the men who abuse them during pregnancy. There was a great discussion a few weeks ago from one of the NAPW(?) women who talked about prosecuting pregnant women for doing drugs (and fetal harm). The same issue comes up here: if a woman were planning on aborting, but a man assaulted her and caused her a miscarriage, could he still face elevated punishment for the miscarriage?

I know I'm going to be trashed by people who think that throwing feminist dogma at me makes the inconsistencies go away, but I can only really hope that someone thinks about this and tries to formulate consistent arguments that are more than, "It's the woman's body." If it's only the woman's body, there's no separate capital crime for killing a fetus. We've all seen Ashley Judd in Double Jeopardy: you can't kill someone twice.

>>>Beyond six months, there is no inconsistency between the abortionist and the perpetrator.

Um, except for, as TH just said, the woman's intentions where the fetus, and her body, are concerned.

What is the "feminist dogma" you fear, as a self-described "feminist"? I don't get it.

oenphile writes:
It is difficult, though, to have this in a post-Roe world. Beyond six months, there is no inconsistency between the abortionist and the perpetrator.

Yes, but only because what we're talking about here, literally, is abortions performed against the woman's will.

Consensual abortion should be legal; non-consensual abortion forcibly terminates a pregnancy and, whether homicide is the precise term we want to go for here or not, it should probably be prosecuted on a comparable basis.

The same issue comes up here: if a woman were planning on aborting, but a man assaulted her and caused her a miscarriage, could he still face elevated punishment for the miscarriage?

If a man forcibly performs an abortion on a woman to terminate a pregnancy against her will, it doesn't matter what else she had in mind. Perpetrators don't get a reduced sentence for stealing a laptop just because the owner was planning on upgrading.

I know I'm going to be trashed by people who think that throwing feminist dogma at me makes the inconsistencies go away,

I don't think it's necessary to abandon the basic goals of feminism to answer these questions, if that's what you're saying. They're not terribly difficult questions.

I can only really hope that someone thinks about this and tries to formulate consistent arguments that are more than, "It's the woman's body." If it's only the woman's body, there's no separate capital crime for killing a fetus.

It is only the woman's body, and part of that woman's body will develop into an infant if she wishes it to. What she chooses to do with that part of her body is her decision. If someone robs her of that decision by terminating the pregnancy against her will, then that person has committed more than assault.

Is "homicide" the technically correct term? Probably not, but the law is full of codes that apply in cases where the etymology doesn't line up perfectly with the offense, so I don't mind if it's prosecuted as such.

Personally, I'm against the death penalty as a matter of policy and do not see a distinction between capital and non-capital crimes. Someone who maims a woman and leaves her to die in the desert should face life imprisonment without parole whether she survives or not. Homicide should not be so neatly compartmentalized from other violent crime.

Cheers,

TH

oenphile, I emphasize that consent really is what makes the difference because, as you apparently suspected we might say, it is the woman's body.

Forcible rape is a crime; consensual sexual intercourse is a fun way to spend an evening. Likewise, forcible abortion is one of the most severe forms of violent crime; consensual abortion is a medical procedure that should remain 100% legal up to 24 weeks.

That's what's really missing from your argument: the concept of consent, the concept that it matters whether or not the woman wants this thing done to her body.

Cheers,

TH

First, most important, point: If it's not a person, it's not homicide.

If it's not a person, it's elevated assault. If it's not a person, it's homicide for the woman plus some aggravating factor. It is some other crime.

In my world, if you are giving someone the death penalty (or charging a capital crime), it better be a person that you killed. No attempted murder, not murder of a bunny rabbit, not accidentally squishing a toe, but a dead person.

If I'm a person, no one's consent or lack thereof can change that. The forcible end of my life is valuable whether or not society deems me worthy of existance. We do not allow the killing of homeless men because they are not valued by society. We reject, actively, the premise of Nazi Germany: that a person needs the consent of another to be a life worth protecting.

Charge him with assault. Charge him with murder of her plus assault. But you can't kill something that isn't alive and you can't be charged with murder. You think that consent trumps all, but that is a principle that undermines the rule of law.

Law, as you correctly pointed out with the laptop, does not depend on what an individual wants, but an objective measure of what society deems worth protecting. You would give pregnant woman rights seen nowhere else in jurisprudence. I don't care if she consents to killing the kid or not - if it's homicide for one person, it's homicide for everyone.

You think that I miss the basic underlying "consent." I don't; it's just that another person's value of one's life is about as relevant to charging homicide as the colour of the sky.

If it's not a person, then the ONLY thing that could be charged is, possibly, an aggravated form of assault. The woman would be able to go after the perp for a tort claim.

"You would give pregnant woman rights seen nowhere else in jurisprudence. I don't care if she consents to killing the kid or not - if it's homicide for one person, it's homicide for everyone."

I don't agree. Tom's proposal would have the law recognize the unique situation of pregnancy, and make it a significant crime to tamper with that situation against the will of the pregnant woman. It doesn't say anything about the personhood or lack thereof of the fetus, because it's not about the fetus: it's about the pregnant woman. If she says, yes, I'd like an abortion, then she is consenting to the termination of her pregnancy. If she objects, then terminating the pregnancy against her will is as foul a crime as forcing a pregnancy on her against her will. I don't see why recognizing the actual status of pregancy would be so difficult for the legal system; if the word "homicide" won't do, and I agree it's a deeply problematic one, find another word. Except I do understand the difficulty, as the legal system is based around a man as its normative figure.

oenophile writes:
First, most important, point: If it's not a person, it's not homicide.

Technically not, but you're arguing semantics here. You don't actually have to break anything to be convicted of breaking and entering, nor are most cases of involuntary manslaughter truly involuntary.

You think that consent trumps all, but that is a principle that undermines the rule of law.

By that logic, rape should be legal if consensual sex is. I don't buy it. Consent does trump all when it comes to my body. If you remove my healthy appendix against my will, you are not doing the same thing a doctor does if she removes my inflamed appendix.

If it's not a person, then the ONLY thing that could be charged is, possibly, an aggravated form of assault.

Yes, a very aggravated form of assault that I would like to see prosecuted as if it were a homicide.

To put it a different way: Manslaughter is a lesser charge than homicide, but if you want to get technical, it is still homicide--literally, the killing of a person. The label we put on a charge is not a philosophical absolute. It is a category of offense.

In this case, if a woman wants to carry a pregnancy to term, forcibly terminating that pregnancy affects her as if it were a homicide, and it alters her intent to create a human person. It is, in other words, her intent that creates this human person--her decision to use her body for this purpose.

It is close enough to homicide to fall under the charge, as far as I'm concerned. But if it bothers you so much, then by all means campaign to have it called something else. For my part, I believe in choosing my battles and that is not a battle I feel passionate about fighting.

Cheers,

TH