Another slap in the face for women
Congress legitimizes ‘fetal rights’
By Sue Davis
By a vote of 61 to 38, the Senate passed the
Unborn Victims of Violence Act on March 25. The law applies to
harming a fetus during federal crimes committed against a
pregnant woman. The House passed a similar bill 254 to 163 on
Feb. 26.
Pro-choice activists view the bill as a two-pronged attack
on women's right to abortion. First is to establish and
legitimize fetal rights so the rights of a pregnant woman can
be pitted against those of the fetus. The second is to use the
concept of "fetal personhood" to eventually overturn legal
abortion.
Kate Michelman, president of Naral Pro- Choice America, told
the New York Times that the bill is not "inspired solely to
protect a woman or her pregnancy--the goal is to gain separate
legal recognition of the fetus." (March 27)
"If a wanted fetus is killed during the commission of a
crime, it's going to enrage people," says Eleanor J. Bader,
author of "Targets of Hatred," which chronicles anti-abortion
violence since the 1970s. "But the Bush administration has
taken the compassion many of us feel for the crime victim--the
woman--and are using it to undermine abortion. The fetus is not
a separate victim. Any attempt to make it one is
ridiculous."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced an amendment to the bill
that would have allowed those convicted of a crime to be
charged with a second offense for harming a fetus or
terminating a woman's pregnancy, without granting new legal
status to a fetus. What Feinstein objected to in the act was
the definition of the "child in utero": "a member of the
species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is
carried in the womb." (New York Times, March 26) The amendment
was defeated 50 to 49.
Sen. Patty Murray also introduced an amendment that would
have required companies to provide unpaid leave for victims of
domestic or sexual violence. This, she asserted, was needed to
reduce crimes against women. That, too, was voted down.
Passage of this bill is the second major attack on women's
right to legal abortion in the current Republican-controlled
Congress. The first was passage of the misnamed "partial-birth"
abortion bill last fall. Though Republicans have been pushing
the Unborn Victims of Violence Act since 1999, it passed now
because 10 Demo cratic senators voted for it, along with a
number of Democrats in the House.
Many link passage of the bill to the sensationalized
coverage of the Laci Peterson murder in California in 2002.
Peterson was eight months pregnant at the time. Her husband has
been charged with two counts of murder.
Thirty-one states already have "fetal homicide" laws on the
books, though all the bills exempt medical abortion from
prosecution in recognition of the 1973 Supreme Court decision
legalizing abortion. Sixteen of the laws define fetal homicide
from the moment of conception.
In Utah, which has such a law, Melissa Ann Rowland was
recently charged with murder because one of the twins she
carried died during delivery. Rowland, who is reported to have
abused drugs and had mental problems, refused to have a Caesar
ean section, though her doctor requested it.
Over the past 15 years, at least 275 women have been charged
with endangering their unborn children. Most involved drug use
during pregnancy. Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National
Advocates for Pregnant Women, has been able to get charges
dismissed in some cases and many convictions overturned on
appeal. Most often, she notes, the women are young, very poor
and lack community support; many are women of color.
To demand reproductive freedom for all women, seven
groups--headed by the National Organization for Women, the
Black Women's Health Imperative and the National Latina
Institute for Repro ductive Health--have called the March for
Women's Lives on April 25 in Washing ton, D.C. Over 1,000
groups have already endorsed, including a wide range of
women's, civil rights, people of color, labor, LGBT,
disability, campus and religious groups, as well as health
clinics and service providers.
"Abortion rights were won in the streets in the 1970s," says
LeiLani Dowell, a Workers World Party member running for
Congress on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket in California.
"We've got to take to the streets again to fight for all the
things women need to defend their bodies and their reproductive
rights: health care, child care, housing, education, jobs,
food, lesbian rights, freedom from violence as well as safe
birth control, abortion rights, no forced sterilization and the
right to have children."
Reprinted from the April 8, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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