Abortion and fetal murder

[SVPD]

It seems to me that it's irrelevant if the woman plans to abort or not.

Women can and do change their minds at the last minute. As such, even if the killer knew the woman was going to have an abortion, he could not know before the fact that she would go through with it.

I don't see how this is a problem for the financial analogy. Promissory notes are not considered as reliable as cash in terms of assets on the balance sheets; they occupy a space somewhere between nothing and cash in the bank, just as the fetus of a woman who plans to carry it to term occupies the same sort of "in-between" value. I'm only pointing out that the concept of this type of "future value" being taken into account does not necessarily force an anti-abortion conclusion.

Well, no, it's not as good as having a living human being. There could be a miscarriage, or the child could be born with any number serious birth defects. Killing a severely retarded child is still murder however.

The point was that up until the procedure is actually done, the woman has the right to change her mind, and women can and do in fact do so. If someone were to kill the fetus after learning the woman's intention to do so, but prior to her having it done, he's ignoring that real possibility that she'll do so.

If I understand your promissory note analogy correctly, the note is the fetus and the payee of the note is the woman. The payor is the normal developmental process that will usually result in a baby.

To use the analogy, let's say that the payor has a certain amount of the money owed salted away in a vault (i.e. a partially-developed fetus). The Payee decides that she will forgive the debt (have an abortion). A burglar learns of this and steals the money from the vault (kills the fetus). The next day the payee learns of a mistake on their bank statement and realizes they cannot afford to forgive the debt (changes her mind about an abortion).

Now the payee cannot get their money because someone else has burglarized the payor.... perhaps not a perfect analogy but the main point is that the burglar/killer is taking upon themself a choice that can only be made by the payee/mother and which can be made at any time up until the procedure/transaction is done.

[Wicked Pilot]

If an assault causes a misscairage then you could argue that it is in effect a forced abortion, which Pro-Choice groups are already against because it violates the woman's reproductive rights.

[wolveraptor]

I think that unless a woman clarifies her position (keeping or aborting the fetus) at the start of the trial, charges of coerced miscarriage shouldn't be able to be pressed. If a woman decides she wants a baby later on, nothing is stopping her from self-impregnation via artificial means.

[Broomstick]

Er... no, I can't agree with that. There are women with fertility problems who have no guarantee of such ease of conception. One of my co-workers, for instance, had something like 8 miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy before she managed to carry a child to term. Because she was heavily in debt and on her own she was very ambivalent about having the baby, but she also felt it might be her one and only chance to have a biological child. An assault on her that had induced a miscarriage could have well resulted in her losing her only chance at biological parenthood.

The age of a woman is also a factor - a woman who miscarries at 20 is far more likely to have future pregnancy opportunities than a woman who miscarries at 40.

Not to mention that a msciarriage is not a neglible thing in and of itself. Depending on the age of the fetus, it can be a big deal and stressful both physically and emotionally.

I think there's a niche for "forced miscarriage", with penalities. Unless it can be determined otherwise, the default stance should be the assumption the woman would have kept the child and penalty assessed accordingly, as that, to my mind, is erring on the side of caution. If the woman had been intending to keep the baby, even if it was a matter of leaning in that direction, and the courts assign no importance to it, it could be a re-traumatization of the victim. On the flip side, few women women who were intending to abort are going to experience distress if the court initially thinks the other way. Therefore, assuming "keep" results in more happiness (or at least less distress) than assuming "not-keep".

I suppose it could then be argued that it's more of a crap shoot to assault a woman - "But, you honor, I didn't know she was pregnant!" Tough shit - you shouldn't be assaulting people in the first place.