President Bush Urges Action on NRLC-Backed Bill

Murders of Laci and Conner Peterson Focus Attention of Lawmakers on Unborn Victims of Violence Act

WASHINGTON (May 8, 2003) - - Widespread public interest in the California murders of Laci Peterson and her unborn son, Conner, has sparked a new push to win enactment of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act in Congress.

The bill would allow criminal charges to be brought on behalf of unborn children who are injured or killed during the commission of federal crimes.

The family of Laci and Conner Peterson released a letter urging Congress to pass the bill, giving it a strong boost to the bill. President Bush also urged Congress to act.

But the bill still faces strong opposition from the pro-abortion lobby - - even though the bill deals only with violent crimes and not with legal abortions. Kate Michelman, president of NARAL, responded to the family's endorsement by attacking "anti-choice lawmakers and advocates" for "exploit[ing] a family's pain in order to move their own political agenda." The bill, strongly backed by NRLC, was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives twice, in 1999 and 2001.

"This bill would have become law four years ago, except for the opposition of NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and the ACLU," said NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson.

On May 7, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act was reintroduced in the Senate by Senator Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) as S. 1019, and by Congresswoman Melissa Hart (R-Pa.) as H.R. 1997. NRLC is pushing for rapid Senate action on the bill.

Peterson Case Brings Issue Into Focus

Laci Peterson, age 27, was eight months pregnant with her first son, Conner, when she was reported missing from her Modesto, California, home on Christmas Eve. After a widely publicized search, the body of Conner was discovered on a San Francisco Bay beach on April 13. The next day, Laci's body was found separately on the same beach.

Four days later, police arrested Laci's husband Scott Peterson, and he was charged with two counts of homicide.

California is one of 26 states that recognize unborn children as legal victims of violent crimes in at least some circumstances. Fourteen of these unborn victims laws apply throughout the period of pre-natal development, and 12 apply during specified periods of development. In California, the homicide law was amended in 1970 to include the words "or a fetus," which the California Supreme Court later interpreted to apply after about seven or eight weeks of development.

On April 25, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer was asked about the Peterson case at a White House press briefing. He told reporters, "The President does believe that when an unborn child is injured or killed during the commission of a crime of violence, the law should recognize what most people immediately recognize, and that is that such a crime has two victims." Fleischer said the President wanted to see congressional approval of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act "this year."

It appears that the great majority of Americas agree. A national Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll released on April 25 found that 84% of registered voters nationwide said that a double homicide charge is appropriate in the Peterson case, while only 7% said that a single homicide charge was appropriate.

Ducking Debate

However, the reality that "these crimes have two victims" is vehemently rejected by pro-abortion groups.

On April 19, the day after Scott Peterson was charged with two homicides, Mavra Stark, the head of the Morris County, New Jersey, affiliate of the National Organization for Women (NOW), told the local Daily Record, "Was it born, or was it unborn? If it was unborn, then I can't see charging (Peterson) with a double murder."

Stark's remarks touched off a national uproar, and she withdrew them within days, even though she had merely been repeating what NOW and other pro-abortion groups have told federal and state lawmakers for years.

When the same newspaper called the NOW national office for a comment, NOW spokeswoman Rebecca Farmer "would not say whether NOW opposes fetal homicide statutes," because, she said, "Right now, the issue is connected to the (Peterson) case." (Daily Record, April 22)

However, one abortionist in New Hampshire, Dr. Wayne Goldner, candidly gave his position on the Peterson case, "On a realistic basis, (the fetus) was not a human being, it was a potential human being," he said. (Ports-mouth Herald, May 2, 2003)

Generally, spokespersons for NARAL and other pro-abortion groups have tried to avoid debating their position in the news media in the context of the Peterson case - - sometimes even refusing invitations from national TV programs. Instead, they tried to deflect the issue by claiming that pro-life groups are trying to improperly exploit the Peterson case and link it to "the abortion issue."

That ploy suffered a severe setback on May 7, when Congresswoman Hart and Senator DeWine released a letter from Laci Peterson's family - - her mother, father, stepfather, sisters, and brother - - endorsing the bill and suggesting that it be called "Laci and Conner's Law." (A reproduction of the letter appears on page 22 of this issue.)

The Rocha family wrote, "As the family of Laci Peterson and her unborn son, Conner, this bill is very close to our hearts. We have not only lost our future with our daughter and sister, but with our grandson and nephew as well. . . . Knowing that perpetrators who murder pregnant women will pay the price not only for the loss of the mother, but the baby as well, will help bring justice for these victims and hopefully act as a deterrent to those considering such heinous acts."

The family members also suggested that the bill could be referred to as "Laci and Conner's Law," language which is now incorporated as an alternative title into H.R. 1997.

In response, NARAL President Kate Michelman told reporters that this showed "the lengths to which anti-choice lawmakers and advocates are willing to go to exploit a family's pain in order to move their own political agenda." (The New York Times, May 8, 2003)

NRLC's Johnson responded, "Kate Michelman's statements are really an insult to a family that has lost two loved ones. I guess she thinks these people are not as smart as she - - not smart enough to form an informed judgment as to whether the law ought to allow a homicide prosecution when a criminal takes the life of an unborn child. In the eyes of NARAL, the Rocha family really did not lose a grandson and nephew - - they think they did, but NARAL thinks it know better. In NARAL's view of the world, there really was only one victim on that beach in California."

"In numerous states and so far in Congress, NARAL has blocked enactment of bills that allow a prosecution for killing an unborn child - - but NARAL now is desparately trying to avoid debating the merits of that legal issue," Johnson concluded.

Johnson also cited the case of a Wisconsin woman, Tracy Marciniak, who survived an assault in which her unborn son Zachariah was killed during the ninth month of her pregnancy. A photo of Tracy holding Zachariah at the baby's funeral was used in ads run by NRLC prior to the 2001 House debate on the bill. (The photo appears on the cover of this issue, and can be viewed or downloaded from the NRLC website at www.nrlc.org.)

"Most people look at that photo and see a grieving mother holding her murdered son - - two victims," Johnson said. "But NARAL and Planned Parenthood insist that the law must pretend that there is only one victim in the picture. In effect, they say to grief-stricken mothers like Tracy Marciniak, 'Nobody really died in that crime, and there is really no dead baby in that picture.'"

What the Bill Does

Currently, unborn children are not recognized as victims when they are injured or killed in federal crimes - - for example, in crimes on military bases or terrorist bombings. (See "Some Cases of Homicides of Unborn Children under Federal or Military Jurisdiction," page 26.)

"Today, if a pregnant woman is assaulted in a federal jurisdiction and her unborn child is killed, it is regarded simply as an assault - - no different from a broken finger," explained NRLC's Johnson. "Under the bill, the attacker would be charged appropriately for the harm he did to each victim."

The bill was originally introduced in Congress in 1999, with the strong backing of NRLC, by then-Representative and now Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in the House of Representatives and by Senator DeWine in the Senate. The House passed the bill in 1999 and again in 2001, but the Senate has never taken it up, due to opposition from the pro-abortion lobby.

"Justice is not done in the federal or military systems when an unborn child is killed in an assault on the child's mother," said Senator DeWine at a Capitol Hill press conference on May 7. "This gap in the law leads to a glaring injustice . . . . [W]e must close this loophole."

Congresswoman Hart agreed, adding, "This bill is crucial in the fight to deter acts of violence against women and the unborn."

Generally, the penalty for the injury to or killing of the unborn child would be equal to that for the same harm done to a born person under the applicable federal law. However, the bill does not allow application of the federal death penalty for a charge brought on behalf of an unborn victim. The bill explicitly excludes abortion and anything done by the pregnant woman herself.

The bill applies to any "child in utero," defined as "a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act would apply only to federal crimes, not to crimes of violence covered by state laws.

For more detailed information on the bill, see "Key Facts on the Unborn Victims of Violence Act," on page 23 of this edition.

One-Victim Substitute

The last congressional action on the unborn victims issue was on April 26, 2001, when the House passed the bill. On that occasion, pro-life forces first had to defeat a substitute proposal offered by Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Ca.), a lawmaker closely allied with the abortion lobby.

The Lofgren Amendment would have erased the Unborn Victims of Violence Act and replaced it with an entirely different proposal. The substitute would have provided stiffer penalties for criminals who cause "an interruption to the normal course of the pregnancy" while committing a federal crime against a pregnant woman, but it would also have enacted the illogical doctrine that such crimes have only one victim - - the mother.

After extensive debate, the Lofgren one-victim amendment was rejected 229-196. The House then passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, in its original form, by a vote of 252 to 172.

When the Senate takes up the bill this year, it is expected that senators allied with pro-abortion groups will offer a "one-victim" substitute proposal.

"Any senator who votes for a one-victim amendment is saying, in effect, that Sharon Rocha did not lose a grandson, and that Tracy Marciniak did not lose a son," Johnson said. "They should be prepared to defend the proposition that there is really no dead baby in the picture."

Pro-Life Objection

In the past, the bill has been criticized by a few pro-life advocates, because it addresses only the issue of unborn crime victims and not abortion.

NRLC's Johnson commented, "Currently, the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court votes to strike down nearly all limitations on abortion, and has even voted to strike down Nebraska's law against partial-birth abortion.

If Roe v. Wade were overturned and a restriction on abortion again permitted, an anti-abortion law would not be applicable in a typical unborn victim case - - for example, whoever killed Laci and Conner Peterson did not perform an abortion. There is no judicial barrier to punishing attacks on unborn children by violent criminals, and we would be poor defenders of the unborn if we did not seek to protect these children through effective legislation such as the Unborn Victims of Violence Act."

Resources

The NRLC website contains the best collection of documentation on the subject of unborn victims of violence available anywhere on the Internet. You can find it here: http://www.nrlc.org/Unborn_Victims/index.html.

These documents include:

* A description of current state unborn victim laws, state by state.

* A summary of numerous federal and state court rulings that laws recognizing unborn victims of violent crimes do not violate any provision of the Constitution, and do not conflict with Roe v. Wade or other U.S. Supreme Court rulings mandating legal abortion. The pertinent rulings include the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, in which the U.S. Supreme Court found no problem with a Missouri law declaring that "the life of each human being begins at conception" and conferring on the "unborn child at every stage of development, all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons. . . , " as long as Missouri did not use this law to interfere with abortions.

* Actual cases of crimes, including crimes in federal jurisdictions, in which mothers and their unborn children were killed or suffered grievous injury.