"Fetal murder" OK for "fetal moms!"
Now I have no illusions about the real inequality in criminalizing "fetal murder." It's all about taking control of sexuality away from women and by extension, people in general. You know. Like the "sanctity of marriage" but only as it applies to gays, not divorce and horror of horrors - let's get real, covenant marriage. This is about criminalizing sexual behavior, not simply taking control of women's bodies. But the gross inequality of the law seems clearly obvious and unconstitutional. It's very similar to the joke about the guy who kills his parents and then pleads to the court for mercy on the grounds that he's an orphan. The definition of kutzpah. Insane.
Well maybe not insane considering the alternative, or rather the alternative if one believes in "fetal murder." The pregnant children (the woman in this case was seventeen years old) would be executed by the state for aborting their fetuses. The state would be killing children and young women. I don't think that alone would be a big deal to these people, after all this isn't "innocent life." But the number of people that would face murder charges and execution would be staggering. And if you "plot" and commit "fetal murder" in another country when that fetus was fertilized American, that would seem also to be "fetal murder." That criminalizes the wealthy that always had a way around abortion laws. No coat hangers or stomach standing needed there.
In one of the linked articles there's a quote, "most of the family is very pleased with the verdict." Would they be as pleased if their daughter, or close relative was going to be executed or jailed for 40 years minium? I don't think so.
When I was a teen, I knew a couple in a similar situation as these kids. Luckily for them, it was a false alarm. Still, at the time, it seemed options were few and having the baby wasn't one of them.
I'd like to think that tragedies such as this (and both the assault and the injustices afterward are tragedies) could be prevented, should be prevented, if young people were brought up with a healthier respect for life and adequately educated both at home and without in the roles they play as parents and adults. Obviously, they didn't feel that they could confide in their families what had happened and that too is a tragedy, but the law doesn't punish parents for pushing their kids away like that. Even so, I have had friends who carried a baby till term and put it up for adoption without the parents knowing. If this couple had known of that alternative, I'd like to think everyone would be better for it.
June 7, 2005 9:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not a woman so I can't speak from experience about the personal, financial and societal pressures that come to bear with an unexpected and unwanted out of wedlock pregnancy. I've never been in a position to have to share that experience either.
I did read the "Scarlet Letter" in high school and I think the stigmatizing of women that become pregnant out of wedlock is very real today, whether or not they go on to bear children. Probably more so than in decades. If you don't "abstain" there's something wrong with you. Something sinful. Something dirty. And those "scarlet letters" stay with you for years and years. I don't think adoption gets around all the societal issues nor the personal issues. If anything putting a child up for adoption is probably more traumatic on a long term basis than taking a morning after pill. Should it be? Is one more or less evil than the other.
The issue is anything but simple, black and white, yet it often is portrayed that way in very disingenuous arguments.
But so is just about everything else now.
June 8, 2005 6:52 AM | Reply | Permalink