WASHINGTON, D.C. — Federal law now recognizes an unborn child as a victim when he or she is harmed or killed in a crime against a pregnant woman. The U.S. Senate voted 61-38 to pass the Unborn Victims of Violence Act on March 25 and President Bush signed it into law on April 1.
Federal law has not treated an unborn child as a victim when he or she dies as a result of an assault against or murder of the mother, even though 29 states have laws that recognize the illegal killing of an unborn child as murder in at least some cases.
The new law states that an assailant who attacks a pregnant woman while committing a violent federal crime can be prosecuted for separate offenses against both the woman and her unborn child, “a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.”
It will apply to crimes on military bases, crimes in federal jurisdictions, terrorism and stalking cases that cross state lines. It explicitly excludes abortion, medical treatment and any action the mother herself takes with respect to her preborn child.
“This law recognizes what all of us already know: there are two victims in a crime against a pregnant woman,” Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said in a statement released after the bill’s passage.
The law brings the nation “one giant step closer” to building a society “where every child—born and unborn—is given the protections they so clearly deserve,” said Perkins.
“This omission in the law has led to clear injustices,” Bush said before signing the bill. “The death of an innocent, unborn child has too often been treated as a detail in one crime but not a crime in itself.
“As of today, the law of our nation will acknowledge the plain fact that crimes of violence against pregnant woman often have two victims,” he said. “And therefore, in those cases, there are two offenses to be punished.”
The measure was named Laci and Conner’s Law after the daughter and unborn grandson of Sharon Rocha of Modesto, Calif. Laci Peterson and her unborn son were killed in December 2002 allegedly by her husband, Scott. Rocha had worked for the bill’s passage. Her husband, Ron Grantski, joined her for the ceremony.
Conner’s “little soul never saw light, but he was loved, and he is remembered,” Bush said. “And his name is forever joined with that of his mom in this statute.... All who knew Laci Peterson have mourned two deaths, and the law cannot look away and pretend there was just one.”
While pro-life groups were quick to praise the President and lawmakers, Planned Parenthood and other abortion supporters were quick to denounce the new law.
Planned Parenthood complained that the bill creates “personhood” for unborn babies, by giving “separate legal status to a fertilized egg, embryo or fetus, even if the woman does not know she’s pregnant.”
The bill marks the second recent major legislative victory for the pro-life cause, along with last year’s enactment of the partial-birth abortion ban.
The Senate cleared the way for passage of the bill by narrowly defeating an amendment, 50-49, that would have satisfied abortion rights lawmakers. The measure would have increased penalties on assailants but maintained that an attack on a pregnant victim was a single-victim crime.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who authored the amendment, feared the implications of the bill will place into “federal law a definition of life that will chip away at the right to choose as outlined in Roe vs. Wade,” the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in all 50 states. Feinstein said it could also chill embryonic stem cell research.
Supporters of the legislation countered that it is not about abortion, but about protecting pregnant women.
Baptist Press and Christian Examiner contributed to this story
Published, April 2004
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