Posted on 04/19/2003 6:06:03 AM PDT by TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!
Monday, April 21, 2003 Posted: April 21, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Joel Miller
Scott Peterson, husband of Laci Peterson, is being arraigned today in a California court on two counts of murder: One for Laci, the other for their unborn child. Pro-choice organizations are understandably uncomfortable about the latter, exposing as it does the convenient lie that abortion isn't somehow murder. "There's something about this that bothers me a little bit," said Mavra Stark, president of the local NOW office in Morris County, N.J., about the second count. "Was it born, or was it unborn? If it was unborn, then I can't see charging [Peterson] with a double-murder." Her logic: "If this is murder, well, then any time a late-term fetus is aborted, they could call it murder." Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! We have a winner! For a straight-dealing answer with no BS, the first prize goes to Ms. Mavra Stark! The killer of little baby Peterson can't be held accountable for murder because then so would a slew of abortion doctors. It's a perfect example of politics being more important than justice. Justice for the child is irrelevant – the political agenda is all that matters. A year ago, a similar case arose in Utah. Roger Martin MacGuire was charged with murdering both his ex-wife and their in-utero child. According to a Jan. 8, 2002, Deseret News story, "2nd District Judge Michael Allphin determined that the Legislature intended the term 'unborn child' in a state's criminal homicide statute to refer to 'a viable and non-viable fetus.'" "As for the issue of whether the word 'person' in Utah's aggravated murder statute includes unborn children," Allphin decided, "the state correctly argues that unborn children are specifically included within the meaning of 'human being' for the purposes of criminal homicide statutes." By his "plain reading" of the state's law, Allphin said the court was led "to conclude that, at least in the narrow context of the Utah criminal homicide statutes, the Legislature intended to protect unborn children 'from the outset of the pregnancy.'" Obviously, California law and Utah law are not interchangeable, but both of these cases point to a puzzling question: What if the women were scheduled to have abortions the day following their murders? Let's say a woman is shot on Tuesday and lives, only her fetus dies from the wounds. In the most ultimate sense, isn't that the same outcome as if she had visited the scissors-and-vacuum man on Wednesday? So, why is the shooter liable for the baby's death but not the abortionist? And, if shooting a baby in-utero is murder, why doesn't showing up for the abortion procedure make one accomplice to the same crime? As far as the baby is concerned, the result is identical. Stark saw this clearly enough to sense a threat to her position if Peterson got hit with the second rap. Substantively, abortion and in-utero murder are the same thing. The only difference is the intent of the mother. If the mother deems the baby worthless, then – voila! – it is. To maintain this legal fiction, both abortionists and defense attorneys try to confine this justification to the womb. MacGuire's attorneys, for instance, argued that only one murder count applied because the "16-week-old fetus carried by Susan MacGuire was not a person under Utah law because it could not survive outside the womb." Maybe, but neither can infants without help. Getting nourishment through a breast instead of an umbilical cord is only a small question of space and time. So why shouldn't parents who deem their children worthless up to, say, 24 months be able to knock them off? Or maybe up to age 4? And then skip ahead 80 years or so – plenty of old folks have a hard time without constant care and assistance. Why not knock them off while we're at it also? The answer to the question should be the same one that eventually curbs abortion entirely. The legal protection of life is more than a dubious proposition if it hinges on the fancy of those to whom it is entrusted. It is an absurd proposition. I'm not certain about the guilt of Scott Peterson. That's for the court to decide. What I am certain about is the can of worms this opens for the abortion lobby. As tragic as the Peterson case may be, I find it sickeningly enjoyable to see abortionists thrust into the unenviable and highly deserved position of defending their actions side by side with suspected murders. |
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