Pro-Lifers Celebrate Senate's Passing 'Laci And Conner's Law'
by Jenni Parker
March 26, 2004
(AgapePress) - Pro-life advocates are hailing an important victory in the U.S. Senate, yesterday's passage of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which President George W. Bush has promised to sign promptly into law.Spurred by the testimony of relatives of unborn victims of violence, the high-profile slaying of Laci Peterson and her unborn child, and the impassioned urgings of pro-life activists, the Senate approved a bill that makes it a crime to harm a fetus during the commission of a violent federal crime against a pregnant women. The bill, which has come to be known to many as "Laci and Conner's Law," passed in the House last month.
Focus on the Family chairman Dr. James Dobson issued a statement applauding the 61 senators that voted to defend society's most innocent victims. "Today's vote affirms in law what is common sense to more than 80 percent of Americans -- there are two victims in violent crimes committed against pregnant women and their preborn children," he said.
The bill, which was approved Thursday in a 61-38 vote, marks the second big legislative win for the pro-life movement recently, along with last year's enactment of the partial-birth abortion ban.
"After President Bush signs the Unborn Victims bill into law, which he has pledged to do quickly, we will celebrate the second pro-life victory in less than six months," Dobson noted. He added that the passage of the two life-affirming pieces of legislation makes this "a triumphant year for every American who believes all life is precious."
Anti-Crime or Anti-Abortion?
Just as the partial-birth abortion ban was resisted -- and is still being challenged in the courts by pro-abortion forces -- the Unborn Victims of Violence Act has also met with resistance from pro-abortion groups that felt the bill was an attempt to undermine "abortion rights" granted as a result of the 1973 Roe v. Wade court decision, which legalized abortion.
In both the House and the Senate, passage of the Unborn Victims bill came only after extended debate dominated by the issue of abortion. While supporters of the bill called it an anti-crime measure, opponents called the legislation a disguised effort to overturn Roe v. Wade. So-called "pro-choice" lawmakers contended that by giving a fetus, at any stage of development, the same rights as its mother, the legislation establishes a precedent that could be used to challenge "abortion rights" in the future.
The Los Angeles Times quoted Senator Dianne Feinstein of California as saying that no one who is pro-choice could vote for the bill without realizing, "Once you give an embryo at the point of conception all the legal rights of a human being .... you've created the legal case to go against Roe v. Wade."
Abortion-rights activists have joined with pro-choice lawmakers in criticism of the bill. In an Associated Press interview, Vicky Saporta of the National Abortion Federation characterized the Unborn Victims bill as a back-door effort that not only attempts to strip women's abortion rights, but also fails to protect women from violence.
"Murder is a leading cause of death for pregnant women," Saporta said, "and Congress should be doing everything it can to address this problem, but this bill does nothing to protect pregnant women. Instead it creates a precedent that could be used to take away a woman's right to choose."
However, supporters of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act argue that it does not undermine Roe v. Wade, since the legislation specifically excludes prosecution of legally performed abortions. Its provisions simply make it a separate crime to injure or kill a fetus during the commission of any of 68 federal crimes, such as assaults on federal property, drug-related shootings, stalking or kidnapping across state lines, and terrorist attacks.
The Voting Record
In the final Senate vote on Laci and Conner's Law, 48 Republicans and 13 Democrats voted in favor of the bill, while two Republicans, one independent, and 35 Democrats -- including presidential hopeful Senator John Kerry -- voted against the measure.
Pro-life advocates took note of those lawmakers who stood up for the unborn. Joseph R. Giganti of the American Life League told AP: "We're happy to see that 61 members of the United States Senate are willing to publicly say they recognize that truth that we have been speaking for several decades -- that that is in fact an innocent human being in the mother's womb that has the same equal rights that all Americans enjoy because of our Constitution."
Concerned Women for America calls the bill's passage an "exciting victory." Wendy Wright, the group's senior policy director, cites the direct influence of a criminal case in California on the measure's approval.
"It's impossible to overestimate the public sentiment behind this bill," Wright says in a press release. "The Laci and Conner Peterson case has made this a living-room issue in homes across America. The American people want to defend the victims, not the criminals."
According to the Los Angeles Times, more than half of all U.S. states have laws making it a separate crime to harm a fetus. In the highly publicized Peterson case, Scott Peterson, Laci's husband, has been charged with the murder of his wife and their unborn child since California law allows prosecution for killing a fetus beyond the embryonic stage of seven to eight weeks.
