Vote scheduled Thursday on deaths of unborn children
Family Research Council, September 29, 1999
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act (H.R. 2436), sponsored by Rep. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), takes an important step to protect unborn children from acts of criminal violence by recognizing the humanity of the unborn child and that the unborn child is a victim of violence in the same way that any other person may be victimized.
A vote on the legislation is scheduled Thursday (Sept. 30) in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Currently, if a criminal injures or kills an unborn child while committing a violent federal crime, he is not charged with a crime for harming the second victim – the unborn child – because the child is not recognized as a victim in the eyes of federal criminal law.
Under this bill, an unborn child who is injured or killed during the commission of a violent federal crime would be recognized as a human victim. The attacker could be punished for manslaughter, murder, or another crime of violence for the harm done to the unborn child.
Twenty-four states already have laws recognizing unborn children as victims of violence. This bill provides that same protection in areas where the federal government has jurisdiction – Air Force bases, for example.
“In 1996, Gregory Robbins, an enlisted man in the Air Force, and his wife Karlene lived on an Air Force base in Ohio. Karlene was pregnant. In that year, Gregory Robbins beat Karlene badly with his fist. He struck her in the face and in the abdomen. As a result, their unborn daughter, Jasmine, died. Robbins was arrested and charged for the beating, but Air Force prosecutors concluded they couldn’t charge him for killing Jasmine, because federal law doesn’t recognize preborn children as victims. An Air Force Court agreed, saying, ‘[Congress] has not spoken with regard to the protection of an unborn person.'”
This legislation does not apply to the medical treatment of a pregnant woman or her unborn child, the actions (legal or illegal) of any woman with respect to her unborn child, nor does it restrict or punish in any way, any type of abortion for which the pregnant woman has given consent.
NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and other pro-abortion groups are vigorously fighting against this legislation because they oppose any legal recognition of the unborn child. Nonetheless, lawmakers who call themselves “pro-choice” should support this bill too because it protects babies who are injured or killed contrary to the choice of their mothers.