03/26/2004: 
Breaking News
Senate passes bill making fetus a separate victim in crimes against women
from Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Senate approved a controversial bill that would recognize a fetus as a victim separate from its mother during a violent crime, drawing fire from opponents who believe it could erode pro-abortion legislation.
Lawmakers voted Thursday 61-38 to approve a measure called the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act," which was passed in the House of Representatives last month. The two chambers now must iron out their differences and then send the measure to President George W. Bush , who has promised to sign it into law.
Under current US law, an individual who commits a crime of violence against a pregnant woman receives no additional punishment for killing or injuring the unborn child.
Twenty-nine states already have laws to that effect on the books, but no such federal statute exists.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist lauded the vote.
"This bill recognizes that when a criminal attacks a pregnant woman and kills her unborn child, he has claimed not just one, but two precious human lives. It ensures that those who prey upon a pregnant woman and her child will pay a heavy price," he said.
But opponents have criticized the bill as a backdoor effort by conservatives to confer greater rights on the unborn child, thereby opening the door to an eventual ban on abortion.
"This is a concerted strategy that is aimed at weakening Roe v. Wade," said Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, referring to the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision giving US women a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy if they wish.
"If you can establish a beachhead right in federal criminal law here ... you give the Supreme Court the ability to say, 'it is in law that embryos have certain rights'," Feinstein said on the Senate floor.
"It's got nothing to do with abortion," Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum countered.
"The issue is ... do we recognize the humanity of the child," he said.
The Republican-led house last month passed its version of the bill by a vote of 254 to 163.
The House also passed similar legislation in 1999 and 2001, but Thursday's debate marks the first time that the Senate has taken up the bill.
Also called "Laci and Conner's Law," the bill stems from the case of Laci Peterson and her unborn child, whose body was found a year ago on the shores of San Francisco Bay, California. Her husband Scott Peterson (news - web sites) is awaiting trial on double murder charges -- California law punishes killing unborn children.
A similar case is also under way in Salt Lake City Utah, where Melissa Ann Rowland, 28, has been charged of murdering her unborn baby by refusing medical advice to have a Caesarean section to deliver twins.
According to court documents, Rowland, who reportedly suffers from mental problems, told a nurse she would rather die than go to either of two recommended hospitals and kept carrying the babies until one of them was born dead on January 15.
She is accused of refusing to undergo a C-section, despite being warned her babies might die if she did not do so.
Civil liberties champions and some women's groups claim the move to prosecute Rowland impinges on the rights of a mother in favour of those of an unborn baby.
This bill, along with the arrest and prosecution of the woman in Utah, are part of a deliberate strategery by the religious conservatives to overturn Roe v. Wade. This is yet another sign that the non- religious conservatives in this country are on the ropes and have no effective strategy for fighting back against a really well- prepared social movement. I will write up an article about the weak Constitutional grounds upon which Roe v. Wade stands and how you can turn the religious conservatives' own argument against them in an upcoming article this week. Stay tuned!
