What should the penalty be? (About fetus rights)

Sam Or I · Post by **Sam Or I** » 2003-01-03 01:36am

If a pregant woman who wanted to have the child is mugged and kicked in the stomach in the first trimester, and the fetus dies, and the mother lives (with no permant damage) what is the penalty for the mugger? Is it just a piece of tissue that does not really matter at all if it died or not, and it is not relavant? Is it a consider a person and the mugger convicted of man slaughter or murder in the 2nd.

I was thinking if that happened to my g/f (or wife ya never know) I would feel he took my kid despite if it was only a few months old. I would be pissed. But thats me.

I am usually neutral during abortion debates but this question from a pro-lifer really got me thinking. I have never had to think as much when presented with anything the pro choice of the house had to say.

Archaic` · Post by **Archaic`** » 2003-01-03 04:12am

Why does the question necessarily need to apply to any rights of the fetus? What about the rights of the expectant parent, who I'll assume for this scenario would've wanted that child. It's *her* rights that've been violated by her mugger in essence terminating her pregnancy afterall. Was it at that point, essentially just a piece of tissue? Yes. Does it matter if it dies? For this scenario, of course, because the parents *wanted* the child.

Sam Or I · Post by **Sam Or I** » 2003-01-03 11:15am

I want my pinky also. If I lost that in a mugging for whatever reason should it be weighed just as heavily as a fetus? Even more heavily, because I cannot grow a pinky back.

Zoink · Post by **Zoink** » 2003-01-03 11:56am

If the fetus isn't considered a human, you can't charge him with murder, no matter how angry you are.

Perhaps treat it as severe mutilation. I'm sure there are cases like this, of pregnant women being beaten; does anyone here knows of any examples of punishment??

Zoink · Post by **Zoink** » 2003-01-03 12:00pm

Sam Or I wrote:I want my pinky also. If I lost that in a mugging for whatever reason should it be weighed just as heavily as a fetus? Even more heavily, because I cannot grow a pinky back.

If replacement is the issue, then, you still have another pinky.

You can't grow that particular fetus back either. You can grow another, but not that one. That fetus is part of the woman, the criminal has mutilated the the woman and destroyed a part of her that she can't recover.

InnerBrat · Post by **InnerBrat** » 2003-01-03 12:18pm

I had a look through my Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority literature for the tariff of injuryies, which is two years old and outdated but y'know what? They don't pay out for the loss of a pregnancy, no matter how advanced it is.

That's fucked up, in my book. Loss of a non-index finger from one hand, BTW, was worth £5,000.

But I agree that the victim is still the woman who has to suffer a miscarriage, and its not necessarily murder.

Setzer · Post by **Setzer** » 2003-01-07 05:31pm

I believe that life begins at conception, and killing a fetus is as bad as killing a human. However, a compromise might be the age. The brain activity is first detectable at six weeks old, correct? A person is considered legally dead when the brain shuts down, correct? Well, why not first consider a fetus alive when the brain activity is first detectable?

ArmorPierce · Post by **ArmorPierce** » 2003-01-07 05:55pm

Hmm... ressurected thread

No, I think it's more of a rights of the mother thing.

Edit: Now that I look over it again I see it's not exactly ressurected considering since this thread was at about the middle of the page.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-01-07 06:33pm

The way the law works is that you can not call this murder at all. This places human life on the fetus by the law and that is in direct contradiction with the Supreme Courts ruling as to abortion and "fetus rights". On the other hand doing such a thing to a pregnant woman can be used to charge the criminal with a much more strict crime like Assault-1 and the kicking the stomache and killing the fetus is an agravating factor that tends to ensure the criminal fills out a full sentence rather then a partial one.

Post by **weemadando** » 2003-01-07 06:40pm

I support legal abortions, but its this kind of court case that would set a truly dangerous precedent. EXCEPT FOR ONE THING. This was not a willing action by the woman. She was attacked. Now, the problem lies in the fact that if you punish the murder of the child you create a whole legal dilemma over that and abortion rights...

So, what I'd recommend is pushing for grievous bodily harm with maximum penalty, possibly followed by a civil case.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-01-07 06:55pm

The fetus in the first trimester is not considered a human being by the law, nor should it be. However, assuming the pregnant woman intended to keep the fetus, whoever killed it could be charged with performing an abortion against the woman's will, or practicing medicine without a license/medical malpractice.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-01-07 07:01pm

Durandal wrote:The fetus in the first trimester is not considered a human being by the law, nor should it be. However, assuming the pregnant woman intended to keep the fetus, whoever killed it could be charged with performing an abortion against the woman's will, or practicing medicine without a license/medical malpractice.

IIRC those are both felonies, but not severe ones. A smart DA would add those charges to an assault charge making it all the worse for the suspect.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-01-07 07:34pm

It's a moot point. A woman does not visibly show that she is pregnant until the third trimester, or in some cases, midway through the second trimester. At that time, the fetus has a nascent brain and is capable of action and reaction.

Therefore, if a mugger were to kick a woman in the stomach and abort her baby in the first trimester, he cannot be charged with any deliberate attempt to kill the fetus for the simple reason that he could not have known she was pregnant.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-01-07 07:37pm

OK, let's change the scenario. Suppose it's not a mugger, but rather, it's the woman's boyfriend. He doesn't want to support a child, so he decides to punch and kick her in the stomach until he's quite sure that the fetus is dead.

He would be charged with assault causing grievous bodily harm, but he would not be charged with murder. The first-trimester fetus has no feelings, no functioning brain, and no legal status (brain activity does not start until the second trimester and is extremely rudimentary even at that time). However, the extreme emotional cruelty inflicted upon the woman would undoubtedly be weighed into his sentencing. Obviously, I would recommend something along the line of genital sandblasting, but I believe there are a lot of mamby-pamby laws to prevent that.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-01-07 07:48pm

Darth Wong wrote:It's a moot point. A woman does not visibly show that she is pregnant until the third trimester, or in some cases, midway through the second trimester. At that time, the fetus has a nascent brain and is capable of action and reaction.

Therefore, if a mugger were to kick a woman in the stomach and abort her baby in the first trimester, he cannot be charged with any deliberate attempt to kill the fetus for the simple reason that he could not have known she was pregnant.

This brings up the question of what to do with a mugger who assaulted a horrendously fat woman who is in her third trimester. Typically, when you weigh in excess of 350 or 400lbs, it's impossible to tell if you're pregnant. My mom, when she was a hospital nurse, had such an experience ... not pleasant.

SeebianWurm · Post by **SeebianWurm** » 2003-01-07 08:18pm

In that case, it would probably be decided by photos of the pregnant woman during the third trimester compared to first, or perhaps as recent as they got before the third trimester.

Falcon · Post by **Falcon** » 2003-01-07 09:11pm

If you don't want to recognize that the baby is a human life then the most the attacker could be charged with is assult, or whatever other normal charges would be incurred in an attack on any person.

Post by **Edi** » 2003-01-08 03:56am

That'd go as aggravated assault with additional incriminating circumstances in the mugging case and in Wong's example with the boyfriend there would be more than one additional incriminating circumstance (premeditation, specific intent to cause miscarriage, unusual cruelty etc), at least the way it would be judged here. The perp would end up in prison and paying damages for emotional trauma in addition to the physical one.

Edi

InnerBrat · Post by **InnerBrat** » 2003-01-08 06:45am

in the original scenario, the mugger didn't have to know the woman was pregnant in order to cause a miscarriage (OK, that brings the potential charge from murder to manslaughter)

In the case of the boyfriend deliberatlely causing a miscarriage, this constitutes a SERIOUS case of domestic abuse, and he should be landed with everything the judge can throw at him...

But recognising either of these cases as homocide allows the pro-life lobby a gateway to slapping 14-year old rape victims with a murder charge...

Post by **Edi** » 2003-01-08 08:00am

It can't go as murder, or even manslaughter, at least not before the fetus would be viable. At least over 22 weeks in the US, there's a court decision regarding a case that had to consider exactly this, but in reverse. It involved a girl stabbing her boyfriend to death because he hit her stomach when she was pregnant (and caused a miscarriage). She pleaded defense of others (the fetus), but the judge told the jury that they couldn't consider it because it wasn't yet viable, hence there was no other person to protect.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,70997,00.html

Edi

InnerBrat · Post by **InnerBrat** » 2003-01-08 08:12am

I don't like that. To (many) women, the potential child is as loved and treasured as the actual child. Regardless of the law, a pregnant woman is going to want to protect her child - and she's hardly going to stop and consider the options while she lets her boyfriend kill her child. he's violating her right to control her own body as much as the people who would sentence her for murder should she decide she can't have the baby...

Besides, I think she should have been given a lesser sentence for defending herself against a dangerous and violent boyfriend.

Post by **Edi** » 2003-01-08 08:28am

I quite agree with you, but the article is illustrative of the difficult issues involved. Here in Finland it's a consideration if the woman is pregnant, and they will definitely slap all the adverse stuff on the perp and mitigating circumstances on the woman in a case like this.

Edi

InnerBrat · Post by **InnerBrat** » 2003-01-08 08:37am

I have to say - I'm really a huge fan of the pregancy and abortiion laws in Scandinavia in general (although I don't actually know where your laws differ from country to country). It was a study on infanticide in Sweden (which basically concluded it was too rare to observe patterns in) that pulled me out of my pro-life arse.

Post by **Edi** » 2003-01-08 09:11am

Thanks. The laws in Sweden and Finland are very similar, most of our laws tend to be, what with our laws being based on the Swedish system from the time we belonged to Sweden (pre-1809) and evolved from there. Stands to reason that abortion and related laws are also very similar, because we have the same values and outlook.

Edi

Pink Eye · Post by **Pink Eye** » 2003-01-11 08:32pm

Darth Wong wrote:OK, let's change the scenario. Suppose it's not a mugger, but rather, it's the woman's boyfriend. He doesn't want to support a child, so he decides to punch and kick her in the stomach until he's quite sure that the fetus is dead.

He would be charged with assault causing grievous bodily harm, but he would not be charged with murder. The first-trimester fetus has no feelings, no functioning brain, and no legal status (brain activity does not start until the second trimester and is extremely rudimentary even at that time). However, the extreme emotional cruelty inflicted upon the woman would undoubtedly be weighed into his sentencing. Obviously, I would recommend something along the line of genital sandblasting, but I believe there are a lot of mamby-pamby laws to prevent that.

Actually a scenario like this happened in Australia [Queensland?] rather recently (I think one or two years ago). A man punched his girlfriend in the stomach because he didn't want the child. He was only charged with with assult; however, pro-life activists have managed to tweak the law in their favor i.e. I believe it is now murder if you do such a thing.