Does the Laci Pederson law protect pregnant women, or

[mandyky]

fetuses? I thought the LP law was opposed by Dems because it gave the "unborn" personhood. Anyone have a link to the law or a summary of it?

[slinkerwink]

1. it's fetuses

[Syrinx]

2. it's a trick to get fetuses recognized as "people"

It's already against the law to kill a woman.

[Booster]

4. And thereby making the crime of abortion

punishable by death. That has always been the righties agenda with this law.

[Syrinx]

8. yep

A Handmaid's Tale. That's where we're going if Dubya wins.

[mandyky]

3. The reason I ask is a * ad running here

Kerry voted against the law and they claim it protects "pregnant women".

[emulatorloo]

11. Kerry supported "Motherhood Protection Act"

http://www.charleston.net/stories/072003/wor_20abortion.shtml

snip

A rival bill sponsored by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., would impose nearly identical sentences, but it would treat a federal assault on a pregnant woman differently. The GOP bill would make it a separate offense to harm an "unborn child," imposing a maximum life sentence as punishment for the "death of ... a child, who is in utero." Bodily injury to a child would carry a maximum 20-year sentence.

Lofgren's Motherhood Protection Act would impose the same level of punishment but frames the crime in terms of terminating or harming a pregnancy.

snip

[K-W]

5. Thats just spn of course.

As I understand it the law adds penelties for killing unborn fetuses. In doing so it purposefully defines a fetus as a person. It wouldnt make abortion illegal, but it is a legal stepping stone towards that goal. It is also useless, it applies only to federal crimes, most murders, including laci pederson (afaik), are state level crimes.

It is a fluff bill and it sneaks in the beginning of a new legal attack on abortion.

[DemBones DemBones]

6. I think it's meant to make the killing of a pregnant woman

and her fetus a double homicide -- as federal law, I suppose, since it already is in some places, including California. I support that because I think anyone who'd deliberately kill a pregnant woman has no conscience whatsoever and should never get out of prison alive. However, it's stupid to say the law "protects pregnant women" except through possibly making killers hesitate because of the harsher sentence for double homicide. I doubt the deterrent effect will save many women or fetuses.

[Nicholas_J]

14. The problem is

That they way the law if written and framed, it only makes a fetus a "PERSON" in the case of a violent crime being perpetrated upon a mother, which is from a legal sense, totally ridiculous. YOu cant legally state that person is only a person some of the time. Which is rather clever of the conservatives, as they know that such subtleties might b lost on the general public, but those who pratice the law and bring cases before the Supreme COurt know that such inconsistancies in a law can be brought before the courts and removed from the law, leaving the rest of the law intact. It would take only a few months before some right to life group would contest the law on that ground, and there really could be no argument against it, as once the fetus is defined as a person, all attempts to make that personhood conditional as to the conditions under which this person died become irrelevant. At that point any abortion becomes at the very minimum, medical malpractice, as it is no longer a fetus that is being aborted, but an actual LEGAL person. Lawyers like Kerry and Edwards can easily see the situation that republicans are trying to create. once the child is defined as a person, that effectively eventually brings the end of abortion. Democrats can also make a case for abortion in the case of the pregnancy being a serious danger to the mothers health and even life, by trying to create legal responsibilities for the fetus. But because the fetus does not intend as a result of thought processes to harm the bearing mother, making a fetus responisible for murder or assault with intent to kill if it kills its mother during late pregnancy, or permanantly damages the mothers health will also be something that REpublicans will be able to subkect to ridicule. I mean can you see someone trying to make a fetus responsible for the eclampsia that it causes in its mother. THe poos little innocent fetus. It would almost be impossible to present the fetus as what it actually is in one sense. A parasite that infests the mothers body adn live off of her. In one sense, this is true, but the conseratives would have a field day with trying to protect the mother from the fetus, even though in mny cases it could be seen to be true.

Anyway, this is the most slppery slope in the abortion issue, and is is the one that sould be opposed in any form, because it is the most harmful to the right to choose.

[Nicholas_J]

7. Cant find a link yet

The one sure way is to get a copy of, or a link to the Federal Register for the date it was voted on.

In fact, this law was simply another attempt to define a fetus as a child, and as far as I can tell, did not set limits to how far into the pregnancy the woman was in to set this definition. Which would easily then set a legal precedent for prohibiting all abortion laws in the United States. Even though the law claimes to exclude abortions, and only focus on the results of a violent crime, the facts are that no law that defines a fetus as a human can be applied only to certain situations. The very next act would be to point this discrepancy out, and since the law would define an unborn child as a person, it would do so conditionally, and so this section of the law could be struck down by the Supreme Court, as setting up conditional person status to the fetus,which simply would be as unconstitutional as saying slaves could be counted as 3/5ths of a person only for the purpose of a slaveholding state receiveing a certain number of representatives in the House of Representatives. It was an attempt to slip in something that would get what they want, and assure that what they didnt want would be voerturned as unconstitutional by the Supremes.


This would be far worse than the recent legislation banning the so called "Partial Birth Abortion" which one court has already ruled unconstitutional"such a definition would prevent any court from ruling on abortion at all, and putting up the Laci Peterson Law was a reaction by conservatives to the higher court that ruled against the federal partial birth abortion legislation. They were going for the throat, and decided to try to pass legislation that would totally prevent the courts from ruling against any anti abortion law they wanted on the books. The Laci Peterson law essentially defines the death of any child in the womb, if it is pre-meditated, as murder.

SInce an abortion is a premeditated act, it would become murder as a result of the Laci Peterson law, and conservatives could move very quickly upon the passage of this law, to destroy all laws allowing abortion to be overturned, and most importantly, it would become the precedent for negation of Roe v. Wade. Even the the health of the mother could no longer be considered adequate reason for performing abortion, as ther mother would have no right to murder a child to save her own life.

It is a very clever law, but its consequences would be overwhelming.

[K-W]

9. Framed well.

Thanks

[jean]

10. a caller (Jane?) on the Al Franken Show last week talked about

this law - it applies on on the federal level - she explained that the crime against the woman (fetus?) would have to take place on federal property - Al said, like a missile silo? or a national park?

She explained that the law is totally useless and nonprotective of women and once again illustrates how bush does NOT care about women.

[gauguin57]

12. There is no "Laci Peterson Law"

That's just a name the Repugs made up to "shame" Kerry in one of their ads.

Bull&%$#!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5407293/

Bush Ad Uses Laci Peterson To Attack Kerry

The John Kerry campaign is firing back at President George W. Bush over a new ad that uses Laci Peterson's name to attack Kerry.

The ad reads: "Missed a vote to lower health care costs by reducing frivolous lawsuits against doctors. Missed a vote to fund our troops in combat. Yet, Kerry found time to vote against the Laci Peterson law that protects pregnant women from violence. Kerry has his priorities. Are they yours?"

A Kerry campaign spokesperson calls the new ad "the kind of negative, misleading and pessimistic campaign the Bush-Cheney team is running."

[Wapsie B]

13. It's just Willy Horton part 2.

Laci was murdered. There are already laws against murder.

[nostamj]

16. it was callled "Laci and Connor's Law" long before the ads

Laci's parents even attended the signing ceremony (link below)


This act of Congress addresses tragic losses such as Sharon and Ron have known. They have laid to rest their daughter, Laci, a beautiful young woman who was joyfully awaiting the arrival of a new son. They have also laid to rest that child, a boy named Conner, who was waiting to be born when his life, too, was taken. His little soul never saw light, but he was loved, and he is remembered. (Applause.) And his name is forever joined with that of his mom in this statute, which is also known as Laci and Conner's Law. (Applause.) All who knew Laci Peterson have mourned two deaths, and the law cannot look away and pretend there was just one.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040401-3.html

[in_cog_ni_to]

15. It's a back door to overturning Roe v. Wade.

Once a fetus is declared a "person"......bye bye abortion.