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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
When a NOW leader said charging Scott Peterson for the murder of his unborn son threatened abortion rights, even some feminists were horrified. But that's been pro-choice orthodoxy on fetal-rights laws -- until now.
Apr 24, 2003 | When Mavra Start, head of the Morris County, N.J., chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW), told a local newspaper that charging Scott Peterson with double murder in the death of his wife Laci and unborn son Conner could aid the antiabortion movement, she was blindsided by fierce criticism -- some of which came from feminists. In less than 24 hours, Start backed off from her comments, saying that she was merely "thinking out loud."
The conflict raised by the double murder charges against is a painful one, made worse by the obvious suffering of the young woman's family. But the quiet controversy around a California law that recognizes a fetus as a full-fledged murder victim raises a fundamental question that threatens to split the feminist movement as it battles to maintain a woman's legal right to abortion: Do laws that criminalize fetal harm encroach on the rights of the mother?
Antiabortion advocates, emboldened by the appointments of staunch supporters to influential posts within the Bush administration, have been seen to gain some important ground through laws that protect fetal rights. One frequently cited measure, initiated by Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson, extends prenatal health insurance to fetuses, rather than their mothers. Recent moves to ban late-term abortion -- dubbed partial-birth abortion by the right -- also focus on fetal, not maternal, welfare, say choice advocates. Fetal harm laws also have been used to penalize women for using drugs or drinking during pregnancy. And laws that provide for double murder charges in the homicide of a pregnant woman are similarly threatening, some reproductive rights advocates say. By systematically strengthening the legal rights of the fetus, a woman's right to choose is irrevocably weakened.
In fact, many abortion rights groups, feminist organizations and domestic violence associations opposed the California law that makes it a crime to kill a fetus, a law that's on the books in some form in 22 other states. But the apparent united front among these activists masks internal dissent about what positions these groups should take on laws that increase penalties for attacks on pregnant women. And the question is asked by both sides: Can pro-choice activists support laws that demand higher penalties for killing a fetus at the same time they call for a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy?
The debate is critically important now in light of startling new data revealing that homicide is the number one cause of death among pregnant women in America.
"It's a tough issue," says Frances Olsen, a UCLA law professor and specialist in feminist legal theory. "My view is pro-choice and pro-protecting fetuses that expectant mothers have created. I think there should be a larger penalty for attacks on pregnant women -- especially when the pregnancy may be the reason for the attack.
"But it's a dilemma for activists," she acknowledges. "On the one hand, fetal homicide laws make a lot of sense. On the other hand, they're being promoted too much by people who don't have women's interests at heart. There's always a problem of laws being misused. But it's outrageous that we can't try to protect something so important to women because it can be used against it."
