Fetal Murder: Abortion Contradiction

I feel rather proud of my new state this week. I saw an article in the newspaper this morning about a law, passed earlier this year, that comes into effect today. Be careful. Now, if you kill a pregnant woman in North Carolina, you can be prosecuted for two murders. Or, if you assault a pregnant woman and the unborn child dies because of it, you can be charged with the murder of the child.

This law has many good aspects to it.
1. It will help protect pregnant women from assault. Many pregnant women are abused by their partners if the women refuse to abort. This law will make their abusers think twice before hurting the mother.
2. The woman's friends and family can get justice not only for the death of their sister or daughter, but also for the death of their niece/newphew or daughter/son. Or if it's just the child that dies, the mother can get justice.
3. This law promotes a culture of life.

Abortion advocates rabidly protest laws like these. It puts them in an awkward position, and they don't like that.

1. They're against violence against women, women should have the right to choose whatever they want and nobody should stop them. Okay, granted. Nothing wrong here.

2. This is more sticky. I have heard abortion advocates say repeatedly that it's all about the choice of the mother. While they don't like to dwell on it, in general they say that the choice of the mother is what gives personhood to the child. If a three-week-old fetus is unwanted, it's a parasite. If a three-week-old fetus is wanted, it's a baby. They have to believe that, or be correctly labled as pro-abortion, not pro-choice. But they'd rather not remind people of this strange situation. This law brings it out into the open.

3. Here's the killer. "We're supportive of a law that would actually help women who are victims," said Carey Pope, the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina. "But this particular law that passed in no way addresses the violence against women. The only thing it does is to establish personhood rights." Uh-oh! Uh-oh! Red alert! Personhood rights for unborn children?!? ABSOLUTE PRO-ABORTION NO-NO.

Because this law does do that, indirectly. While it makes the exception of abortion, it offers a glaring contradiction: if you kill a baby that the mother wants, you're a murderer. If you kill a baby that the mother doesn't want, you're a hero.

Huh?

Eventually people have to blink and realize that, wait a minute, the fetus didn't change at all. The only thing that changed was the mother's way of thinking.

Hmmmmm.







This law doesn't even contradict what most abortion advocates claim to believe: that it's the mother's choice that defines personhood. All this law does is make people look that contradiction in the face. That's why abortion advocates are scared of this law. If abortion advocates believe it's wrong (and criminally prosecutable) to force a woman to have an abortion, how is it any different when someone (indirectly as it may be) kills a woman's unborn child? Wait...there isn't a difference.

As I stated above, that this law actually does help women. If I was going to kill or hurt somebody, I'd think twice about it if I realized I could be punished doubly for it. This law also helps protect the women who survive the assault, but their baby doesn't. Punishing the offender won't bring their child back, but it's better than the hurtful alternative: "I'm sorry ma'am, I realize that you feel this man killed your child, but legally your child was a mere fetus, and therefore not a person, and therefore we cannot prosecute this man for the fetus's harm." Oh, thanks. Somebody killed my child and you're going to let him get away with it.

Planned Parenthood also opposes this legislation. So at least two huge pro-"choice" groups here in NC don't like this law: and why? Not because it doesn't protect women (because it does), not because it harms choice (because it doesn't), but because it illustrates how their beliefs make little sense.

(By the way, kudos to North Carolina's House Speaker Pro Tem Dale Folwell for sponsoring, speaking for, and advocating this law! Many thanks, Representative Folwell!)

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