Posted on 12/14/2004 9:58:16 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
The jury's sentence of death for Scott Peterson may have grabbed the most media attention but another issue related to the celebrated case may have a lasting legal effect: abortion.
The case "put the unborn child on the map for everyone to see," Randy Thomasson of the Campaign for California Families told USA Today.
He was right. The killing of Connor Peterson was a key factor in the jury's decision to impose the death penalty on his killer, and the state law that allowed an unborn child to be deemed a murder victim created a serious legal problem for the abortion industry, which thrives on the fiction that unborn babies are not human life and are therefor expendable and cannot be treated as victims.
According to juror Richelle Nice, of all the horrendous factors in the Peterson case, the killing of Connor - whom she called "little man" - hit her the hardest. "That was his daddy that did that to him." she said, adding that she decided on the death sentence because of the nature of the crime.
The other two jurors to speak out on the case also stressed Connor's murder as key factors in their decision to impose the death penalty.
According to USA Today, the debate over legal protections for the unborn had an impact on a national issue. Conner, an unborn infant perished with his mother and the state of California, along with 29 other states, recognizes the killing of an unborn baby as homicide. As a result, prosecutors charged Peterson with double murder under the California law, and multiple murder is a criterion that permits the death penalty.
The decision to charge Scott Peterson with murder of his unborn son has already had an impact on the abortion debate. As USA Today noted, anti-abortion activists had tried in vain for five years to get a federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act passed — until publicity over the Peterson case and lobbying on Capitol Hill by Laci's family got it through Congress.
On April 1, President Bush signed the measure, by then dubbed "the Laci and Conner law."
Under that law an assailant can be charged with a crime against a fetus if the fetus is harmed during a kidnapping, bombing, interstate stalking or other federal offenses.
As reported in NewsMax.com on December 8 Catherine Antrim, a weekly columnist for the San Francisco Examiner and author of the political thriller "Capital Offense," noted in her column Could the Peterson Conviction Overturn Roe v. Wade? that California’s 34-year-old fetal homicide law and Congress’ Unborn Victims of Violence Act passed in April 2004, (the Laci and Connor law) "reinforce the 'personhood' of an unborn child and affirms that the not-yet-born have rights, and provides protection for babies still in the womb."
Wrote Antrim: "Essentially, this conviction, and others like it, recognizes the fetus as a separate entity with its own civil liberties... the Peterson conviction makes the murder of an unborn child very public."
Maybe some good will come of it but a court decision can not "overturn" a SCOTUS decision...
I don't know what the 'maxers' mean, here. That was the whole point. That's why the case was treated to national prominence by the leftist press. Now, after a few months, it took on a life of its own. It was the - Peterson trial. But that's how it started out. That's why it became a famous trial. Not coincidentally, there was a woman right next to the 'media tents' yesterday trying to get signatures for a parental notification measure.
This is one of them. How on earth can a society say it's OK for a mother to abort -- kill -- her fetus, yet's it's murder if the father or someone else does it? Actually, if the father can be guilty of murder for killing his fetus, then why doesn't that apply to doctors who abort fetuses?
It simply is an untenable position for the legal system to take.
Am I missing something here? Those that support the right-to-life certainly are ecstatic over the fact that Connor was in fact considered a human being, and not just cellular components considered a fetus...yet at the same time how can one be ecstatic over a death sentence of a human being based on circumstantial evidence? I, for one, believe he is guilty and should be given life in prison....however, I don't believe "I" have the right to take away another human's life unless in the position of self-defense.
Of course it can, in fact that's often exactly how SCOTUS is overturned, that is by a new case brought to SCOTUS for a ruling.
IOW, all Snott Peterson's attorneys need to argue on appeal is the 14th Amendment -- Equal Protection. Had Laci Peterson chosen to go to Planned Parenthood on December 23, 2002 and have an abortion, there would be "no murder" of Conner Peterson. How can Snott be found guilty of murdering that same unborn child on that same day if Laci had the "right" to do so? I am hoping Snott's appeals go that route.
So obviously true. That will take appropriate court appointments. The courts are the reason there even is an ACLU. Take away courts favorable to such self-destructive leftism, and you render the ACLU, and Hollywood-types ineffective. Because they don't have the power to persuade, only to impose!
Allow me to explain, whether an unborn baby is a human life or not is determined solely by whether it is wanted by the biological mother, or both the biological mother and father. If it is not wanted it is a fetus, a pregnancy to be 'terminated', a glob of cells, an undesired consequence to a specific desired behavior, an inconvenience to be eliminated.
There now doesn't that make perfect sense?/sarcasm
You've mentioned yet another problem I have with the Peterson case. Every couple of years or so, the media choose to focus it's white heat on a murder case. They invariably pronounce someone guilty, and wouldn't you just know it, that's the person the prosecutor charges. With rare exceptions, a jury eventually convicts the person the media pointed to as guilty. This has been going on since at least the days of Pulitizer, Hearst and their "yellow journalism."
Given the poor esteem most people have for the media in this, the dawn of the 21st Century, one would think we'd have long since figured out the media's game when it comes to sensationalizing any given murder case. But no. If anything, we're even more subject to their manipulation and to mob mentality than ever before.
You're right. Exactly what hard evidence exists that points to Peterson's guilt?
I must say I was unaware of such a law, though I have been advocating for years that the issue of abortion could be handled by Congress.
Roe v Wade sole reason that abortion is a legal right protected by the woman's right to privacy is that a fetus is not a person until it is "viable."
That is it folks. It is that simple.
So all Congress had to do is declare a fetus a "person" with all of the protections as any other person who is a state or U.S. citizen.
So, if I ever know of woman who has an abortion, I will ask the local federal prosecutor to charge the woman with murder under this law.
>Had Laci Peterson chosen to go to Planned Parenthood on >December 23, 2002
Would she have been able to have an abortion at 8 months?
Partial birth abortions are done up until the moment of birth.
Scott Peterson could have killed Laci at any time, or he could have not killed her and kept up the affairs. It was the prospect of becoming a father that put him over the edge.
Laci's mom said that divorce was always an option. I disagree. Scott would still be a dad, with child support and alimony. That's why I say that the target of the murder was Connor, not Laci. She was the collateral damage.
-PJ
FINALLY!!! A case that makes it clear that it is a CRIME to kill an unborn child. Now let us use linear logic and former common sense morality to criminalize ALL such killings, including purely elective ABORTIONS!!!!
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