Friday, Scott Peterson was convicted. Due to unusual circumstances, I happened to be in my car when the verdict was read in court. All of the news stories and broadcasts I’ve seen or heard say pretty much the same thing: Scott Peterson was convicted of killing his wife, Laci Peterson, and her unborn baby.
If I hadn’t been listening to the radio when the verdict was read, I would have missed it. Here’s a link to the audio: Court bailiff, reading guilty verict in killing of unborn son.
For those of you who don’t have Real Player installed, here’s the transcript of the sound bite:
[woman's voice speaking] We, the jury in the above entitled cause, find the defendent, Scott Lee Peterson, guilty of the crime of murder of baby Conner Peterson.
Do you see the key words there: “baby Conner Peterson.”
Scott Peterson was prosecuted under California’s fetal homicide law. This was a precursor to the Federal Unborn Victims Of Violence Act (UVVA), renamed “Laci and Conner’s law” or (as referred to in Bush ads during the election) “The Laci Peterson Law that protects women against violence.” UVVA defines an unborn child as “a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.”
Nation Right To Life claims that the law does not cover reproductive health rights and was meant to protect women. The law actually does nothing to prevent violence against women. It totally ignores the fact that any assault that harms a pregnancy is inherently a harmful attack on a woman.
What the law does do is to define a human life as starting at conception and provide separate legal rights for a fetus. Both erode a woman’s rights to reproductive choice and the latter is in direct conflict with Roe v. Wade, which held that a fetus is not a person under the 14th Amendement to the Constitution.
A different act, the Motherhood Protection Act of 2003, that would have supplied the same punishment for violent conduct agains a woman causing in an interruption of the normal course of a pregnancy resulting in harm to the pregnancy (including termination) as UVVA, but that did not give separate rights to the fetus, didn’t make it through committee.
Lest anyone think I’m exaggerating NRL’s intent, the day that the Scott Peterson verdict was handed down, KOIN News interviewed a representative from the Oregon Christian Coalition who said, basically, “Thank God we have a verdict and now we can overturn Roe v. Wade.” (Unfortunately I did not catch the name of the person being interviewed, and I cannot find mention of this on KOIN’s web site.) And, lest anyone still think I”m exaggerating, here’s an article by Jay Sekulow, Executive Director and Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, a right-wing group founded by Pat Robertson that claims to be “dedicated to protecting your religious and constitutional freedoms” but that is actually dedicated to “defending and advancing religious liberty, the sanctity of human life, and the two-parent, marriage-bound family.” Any doubt as to the ACLJ’s actual mission can be clarified by reading any of their position statements.
Quoth Sekulow regarding the Peterson verdict:
How does recognition of the value of the Peterson child’s life affect the pro-life movement? Well, it certainly gives us the momentum, if you will, to argue that this is a life worthy of protecting under the Constitution, when the murder of an unborn child is recognized as a separate and distinct crime under constitutional law.
We stand on a very slippery slope on which a woman’s rights to basic reproductive health care are at grave risk of being curtailed or eliminated. There is no medication other than contraception that is so rarely covered by health insurance. There is no medical procedure other than abortion that requires the patient to be subjected to waiting periods and the provider to be required to dispense unscientific information.
Other items to be aware of and write your representatives and senators to express your disapproval of:
The Abortion Non-Discrimination Act [S.1397 and H.R.3664] This deceptively-named bill allows a broad range of health care providers to refuse to comply with existing federal, state, and local laws pertaining to reproductive health services. Sponsors of the bill claim that laws and regulations involving abortion and other reproductive services are “discrimination” against health care providers who do not want to comply with them. This law permits providers to refuse to provide reproductive health services, including abortion services, counseling women about the option of abortion, paying for abortions for needy women and referring women to health care professionals who provide abortion services. (I wonder if I could use this argument with the IRS in April when I really don’t want to comply with the tax laws?)
The Pledge Protection Act. [H.R. 2028] This bill strips the US Supreme Court and other Federal courts of the power to hear constitutional challenges to the Pledge of Allegiance. It lays the foundation for denying challenges to other constitutional guarantees, including to right to choose. It has not yet been introduced in the Senate.
The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act of 2004 [S. 2466] This act states that the US Congress has determined that any fetus over the gestational age of 20 weeks can feel pain and requires any provider of a post-20-week abortion to make the following oral statement to the patient:
You are considering having an abortion of an unborn child who will have developed, at the time of the abortion, approximately ___ weeks after fertilization. The Congress of the United States has determined that at this stage of development, an unborn child has the physical structures necessary to experience pain. There is substantial evidence that by this point, unborn children draw away from surgical instruments in a manner which in an infant or an adult would be interpreted as a response to pain. Congress finds that there is substantial evidence that the process of being killed in an abortion will cause the unborn child pain, even though you receive a pain-reducing drug or drugs. Under the Federal Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act of 2004, you have the option of choosing to have anesthesia or other pain-reducing drug or drugs administered directly to the pain-capable unborn child if you so desire. The purpose of administering such drug or drugs would be to reduce or eliminate the capacity of the unborn child to experience pain during the abortion procedure. In some cases, there may be some additional risk to you associated with administering such a drug.
The woman is required to sign a form stating whether or not she wants anesthetic administered to the fetus.
It’s interesting that the US Congress has suddenly become an expert on fetal development. In actuality, while some reflex action may be present, a fetus cannot perceive pain until its cerebral cortex is sufficiently developed — at around 30 weeks.
This bill was also introduced in Oregon during the 2003 session as HB 2550. The bill requires physicians to report the number of women who were informed or not informed and under what circumstances. Failure to report becomes a crime called “unlawful abortion reporting,” punishable by 30 days in jail, a $1,000 fine, or both. The Department of Human Services must make the report public. If a woman does not want her identity disclosed, she must ask the court to prevent it and the court must tailor its order to narrowly fit only her circumstances. If a physician must obtain in writing a woman’s certification that she received the materials required. Not doing so opens the physician to recovery of actual an punitive damages by the father and grandparents of the fetus, and makes the physician guilty of a new crime, “nonconsensual abortion,” punishable by 5 years imprisonment, a $100,000 fine, or both.
The Global Gag Rule. This was first instituted as an executive order by Ronald Reagan and was continued by George H.W. Bush. Bill Clinton eliminated it in 1993, but it was reinstated by George W. Bush in 2001. The policy prohibits U.S. funding to any foreign nongovernmental organization unless it agrees that it will not use its own private, non-U.S. funds for abortion services or counseling, or even express a pro-choice viewpoint publicly.
Abortions in Military Hospitals. This ban bars women in the military and their dependants from seeking an abortion in a Military hospital, even at their own expense.
Some bills and measures to write to your representatives and senators to express your support of:
Patient Privacy Protection Act of 2004. [S 2827 and HR5126] In the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), Congress clearly stated that Federal policy should protect patient privacy. This bill provides a direct remedy to the gap that was disclosed when Attorney General John Ashcroft sought to review the medical records of thousands of women who had abortions at facilities throughout the country while attempting to defend the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban of 2003, which has since been declared unconstitutional by all three federal courts that considered it. The courts were divided on whether Ashcroft should have access to these private medical records of women who had no connection to the lawsuit.
Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) [S. 2020 and H.R. 3719] This bill prohibits, consistent with Roe v. Wade, the interference by the government with a woman’s right to choose to bear a child or terminate a pregnancy. It would permit states to enact restrictions after fetal viability only if exceptions are made for the woman’s life and health. It would supersede all existing state and federal laws that currently interfere with a woman’s fundamental right to choose.
Putting Prevention First Act [S 2336 and HR 4192] This is an omnibus family planning and women’s health initiative that was introduced on April 21, 2004, with more than 70 bipartisan co-sponsors. It includes seven major initiatives to expand access to preventive health care services and education programs that will help to reduce the rates of unintended pregnancy, reduce sexually transmitted infections, and reduce the number of abortions. The initiatives included are:
Putting Prevention First Act – Authorizes appropriations for family planning services grants and contracts under the Public Health Services Act.
Family Planning State Empowerment Act – Allows states to provide family planning services and supplies to certain individuals not otherwise eligible for Medicaid.
Equity in Prescription Insurance and Contraceptive Coverage Act – Prohibits group health plans and issuers from excluding or restricting benefits in any way for prescription contraceptive drugs, devices, and outpatient services if the plan provides benefits for other outpatient prescription drugs, devices, or outpatient services
Emergency Contraception Education Act – Directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to develop and disseminate information on emergency contraception to the public and to health care providers.
Compassionate Assistance for Rape Emergencies Act – Requires hospitals, as a condition of receiving Federal funds, to offer and to provide, upon request, emergency contraception to victims of sexual assault.
Family Life Education Act – Requires grants to States for family life education, including education on abstinence and contraception to prevent teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
Preventing Teen Pregnancy Act – Authorize grants to public and private entities to establish or expand teenage pregnancy prevention programs.
Contact Info:
You can find out how to contact your representative through the US House Of Representatives website.
Information on contacting your senator is available through the US Senate website.
Oregon State senator and representative contact information can be found on the Oregon State Legislature website.
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